Adventures v. Situations (Forked from: Why the World Exists)

[LostSoul]

How's this for a definition of situation:

The conflict or tension generated by different elements in the setting.

How about this for adventure:

A hazardous undertaking that the DM wants the players to explore in the game.

 

[Scribble]

And clearly that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the fact that most adventures have a linear series of expected events, and the players are expected (and indeed often have to complete the adventure) go from A -> B -> C -> D in order. If you've got a better term than 'railroad' for that which will make you less uncomfortable, then by all means, I'll be happy to hear it and use it.

How about a flowchart?

These are the most logical steps we can think of for the PCs to thwart this problem. (The DMs on his own if the players do something wildly different, or decide this isn't the adventure for them after all. We're just trying to give the DM as much background info as possible on this particular situation to make things easier should they choose to interact with it.)

 

[Celebrim]

Moot?

Yes, Moot.

We have been trying to establish if there are differences in adventures done in a sandbox style setting and adventures which have been done in a more scripted to the PC's setting. Someone suggested that we should call 'adventures that procede from the sandbox' style, 'scenarios', to avoid confusion. Some others have said paraphrased, "Well, I isn't that an arbitrary distinction because they are basically all just adventures?"

In order to try to prove the last point, you've just said, "Suppose we have a sand-box style setting, and we have 'adventures' and 'scenarios'. Won't they be fundamentally the same? Oh I've gotcha now. I've gotcha haven't I!"

Of course, if we assume that we have a sandbox style setting, then sure naturally everything, whether its a published adventure included in the setting or a player driven scenario will acquire a 'senario-like' quality by the simple virtue of being a component of sand-box play. If I drop 'Tomb of Horrors' down in my sandbox, and give no more hook than, "Acerak's Tomb can be found in the Dismal Swamp.", then sure its going to acquire alot of scenario like qualities - like for example the fact that there is no hook nor gaurantee at all of level appropriate encounters. And the same would apply to any other published dungeon that I dropped into my sandbox campaign world to flesh it out.

By contrast, if we play the 'Return to the Tomb of Horrors' adventure path, then Acerak's Tomb is stop 'C' on the railroad, and when it comes up, that's where the party goes. Obviously, I'm not saying that 'RttToH' is bad wrong fun, and obviously alot of players have enjoyed the ride. But, let's not pretend that the idea here is for the players to come up with some other way to get to Moil and thwart Acerak or that going into the Tomb is an optional step in the adventure.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

How about a flowchart?

I love my flowcharts not just for individual adventures but whole campaign plots.

Hmm... Maybe I will make a random one up, just to showcase how I view adventure/campaign design.

 

[Imaro]

OK, now I am thoroughly confused about your position on this issue. My understanding of your previous posts in this thread has been that the difference, for you, between "situations" and "adventures" basically comes down to a question of the number of options. In other words, if the PCs are presented with a number of options for doing something adventure-like, they are "situations", if the PCs are presented with only a single option, it's an "adventure". I understand, but disagree with, that position.

On the other hand, for Celebrim the difference between the two seems to come down to two entirely different things, 1) the amount of prep-work dedicated to a particular adventure-like option and 2) the source of the idea for the adventure-like option (i.e. did the idea come from the players or the DM). So that it's entirely possible to have both several "situations" in addition to a number of "adventures" all presented to the players at the same time.

I think the points you touched upon are not exclusive, I think both help to differentiate how I see "adventures" and "situations"... furthermore I feel nothing in the world is an adventure until the PC's interact with it in some way or form... otherwise it is really just a situation that may or may not prompt an adventure dependent upon whether the PC's choose to interact with it or not.

I'm confused because you're agreeing with Celebrim wholeheartedly, yet in the other thread you used the following example...

Before we go any farther can I ask you a question... why did you partially quote me totally out of context? I don't like to deal with purposefully disingenuous people and after the time wasted hunting down that quote (since you decided not to link to it so others could see the reall thread) I find it has nothing to do with what you are discussing and thus if you purposefully are being disingenuous let me know now and we can end our discussion.

In that thread Stoat asked me how he could go about determining a NPC or monsters motivations... I in fact gave him 4 ways, though you quoted only one, for him to choose from. Anyway...

Now, to me, that scenario requires both a decent amount of forethought and that the DM present that particular scenario to the PCs rather than them choosing it of their own volition (i.e. the DM says, this is what is happening and this is how it affects you).

It's a setting element, part of a timeline of events. First off, nothing but the fact that Ogres will migrate (if not stopped or hindered) is fleshed out or built upon, second the PC's are neither required or expected to act upon it, they may not even find out about it... how is this in anyway similar to most published adventures...

So Celebrim's definition ignores and maybe even contradicts what appears to be the core of your point (number of options) and absolutely contradicts one of the examples you've given of a "situation", yet you're claiming he said exactly what you wanted to say. I am left with a very unclear idea of what you've been trying to say

Perhaps that's what happens when I am answering one question... "how can you determine the motivations or goals of an NPC or monster"... and someone decides it is my answer to a totally different question.

So, let me pose some very concrete questions (others feel free to chime in with answers as well).

The scenario: The DM starts the campaign ready to run several pre-made adventures. He introduces the PCs to a number of pieces of information, some of which lead to The Village of Homlet, some of which lead to The Isle of Dread, some of which lead to Slave Pits of the Undercity and others which lead to a number of shorter side-trek adventures he had prepared. In addition, the DM has a fully detailed, sand-box-style campaign world and it is perfectly possible that the PCs might follow up one piece of information and then switch mid-session to following up another one, leading to one of the other scenarios. In addition, it is also possible for the PCs to ignore everything the DM tells them and set off to do something completely unrelated to whatever the DM has prepared.

Question 1: Which of the above are "situations" and which are "adventures"?
Question 2: Does the answer pertaining to the side-trek adventures depend in any way on how detailed the notes and maps are for these particular scenarios?
Question 3: If we leave off the last sentence of the scenario, does that change the status of any or all of the items?
Question 4: Does the player's perception matter in this at all? If the DM perceives the players as having an equal opportunity to pursue any of these avenues, but the players perceive only the 2nd side-trek as an immediately viable option, does that change the status of any or all of the items?

Thanks for your patience.

1. It depends upon a few things... whether the PC's are pushed/coerced by the DM towards a particular one so it will be the "adventure" for the night through any type of pressure, as opposed to just relying on information for them to maake their choice... or if the PC's are not interacting with them, if they are interacting with a situation then it is an adventure... if they are not it is just a situation.

2. No. Unless this in turn biases what the DM actually allows to take place in the game...thus by limiting the PC's to only one path, he has insured that that is the adventure for tonight.

3.Uhm, it changes the campaign to a non-sandbox campaign. And changes the situations above into adventures since these are the only elements the PC's can now interact with. They may be able to choose the order but these adventures are the only options the PC's have now.

4. Yes, since the DM has, as he controls the world and the PC's perceptions, limited them and thus made situation 2 into the PC's "adventure" as opposed to just one of various situations they can choose for an adventure.

I mean Celebrim is right to a point as long as it is a sandbox game these questions are moot (except that some of them make it a non-sandbox game) the PC's can choose whether to pursue or not anything they want, thus nothings an adventure until they choose to embark upon it.

 

[Celebrim]

How about a flowchart?

Sure, a few adventures have a slightly more complex flowchart than A->B->C->D, but the point still stands. The open ended sandbox style module was experimented early in D&D's history, and generally was not as well received as scripted events - probably because people didn't like spending money for just a loose framework of ideas which left most of the work up to the DM. Modern adventures tend to be highly linear. Many of the most famous modules are parts of 'adventure paths', where the completion of Module 'M1' invaribly leads to 'M2', and then 'M3', and so forth. There is no expectation that by the time M4 comes around that the events of M3 will have completely invalidated it, nor can you really get involved with locations and NPC's from M5, then skip back to M2, and then immediately go to M9, or so forth.

Again, I'm not passing judgement on this. It can be alot of fun, and as I said, I would encourage new DMs to start a campaign with a fairly linear adventure and some exciting scripted events to get things jump started.

These are the most logical steps we can think of for the PCs to thwart this problem. (The DMs on his own if the players do something wildly different, or decide this isn't the adventure for them after all. We're just trying to give the DM as much background info as possible on this particular situation to make things easier should they choose to interact with it.)

'Railroading' got a bad name because there was a tendancy for novice DM's when confronted by an player action in M2 that would invalidate the entire M3 module, or faced with a player decision that took the party right out of the flow chart, to just say, "No. You can't do that.", especially when the PC's had thought of a creative solution that would let them defeat the adventure far more easily than the DM had intended. "No, you can't do that.", is a highly antogonistic stance for a DM and is generally unjustified and unfair, so naturally it got a bad name.

But most of the time I think players are happy to be on the railroad. It only gets to be a problem when its starts to feel like its not really their choice to be there.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So you're not in agreement with Celebrim's definitions of "situation" vs. "adventure". Gotcha.

Neither am I, exactly, but I can nonetheless understand what his definitions are, and thereby understand his point, which I am in agreement with.

I'd say:

Situation: An in-world location or event that can be interacted with. No component of PC interaction is part of the situation, though PC interaction can change the situation and/or create new situations. For example, the Forest of Evil between two villages is a situation, with its related wandering encounter tables, subset locations, etc., etc. .

Adventure: A series of smaller-scale events that takes place during game time. I.e., the encounter design is a situation; the encounters as they play out constitute an adventure. Travelling through the Forest of Evil is an adventure.

Hook: Anything that the DM uses to lure the PCs into the situation, and thereby turn the situation into an adventure. Needing to get to Village X by time Y, with the shortest route being through the Forest of Evil is a hook.

Goal: Anything that the player determines is of interest to his PC, thereby turning a situation into an adventure, regardless of the presence of absence of DM hooks. When a player buys into a hook, that hook also becomes a goal. The PCs wandering off the path in the Forest of Evil to examine something unrelated to the hook of going from Village B to Village X is a goal without being a hook.


In the strongest version of one paradigm, the DM creates situations (as defined above), allowing adventures to happen as they do. He does not create strong hooks, but encourages the players to develop goals. (This DM may not see that he is creating hooks, because while doing so is paradoxically necessary, it is also antiethical to what he hopes to achieve.)

In the strongest version of the other paradigm, the DM creates situations wherein he envisions the sequence of small-scale events that will occur. He is, in effect, predetermining to some extent not only the situation but also what will occur when the players interact with that situation (i.e., the adventure). He creates hooks, and encourages the players to make those hooks their characters' goals. He discourages goals that lead away from his precrafted and preenvisioned work. (This DM may not be able to see the difference between situation and adventure, as they are so tightly bound in his perspective.)

Most people do not fall under the strongest version of either paradigm, but lean more toward one than the other.



RC

 

[Ourph]

Yes, Moot.

We have been trying to establish if there are differences in adventures done in a sandbox style setting and adventures which have been done in a more scripted to the PC's setting.

I disagree that this is the issue under discussion. I think the issue under discussion was defined pretty clearly by the OP and the above isn't it.

Someone suggested that we should call 'adventures that procede from the sandbox' style, 'scenarios', to avoid confusion. Some others have said paraphrased, "Well, I isn't that an arbitrary distinction because they are basically all just adventures?"

In order to try to prove the last point, you've just said, "Suppose we have a sand-box style setting, and we have 'adventures' and 'scenarios'. Won't they be fundamentally the same? Oh I've gotcha now. I've gotcha haven't I!"

Actually, to be quite clear, I believe the word was "situation" not "scenario". Anyway, I'm not trying to prove a point or play "gotcha" with anyone. I see Imaro appearing to both agree with you and disagree with you on points that I think I've pretty clearly outlined and then expanded upon above. I'm asking for clarification.

Of course, if we assume that we have a sandbox style setting, then sure naturally everything, whether its a published adventure included in the setting or a player driven scenario will acquire a 'senario-like' quality by the simple virtue of being a component of sand-box play. If I drop 'Tomb of Horrors' down in my sandbox, and give no more hook than, "Acerak's Tomb can be found in the Dismal Swamp.", then sure its going to acquire alot of scenario like qualities - like for example the fact that there is no hook nor gaurantee at all of level appropriate encounters. And the same would apply to any other published dungeon that I dropped into my sandbox campaign world to flesh it out.

The very long and detailed definitions you gave (with examples) on the previous page disagree with what you've just written here.

Anyway, I still don't see how anything you've said renders my questions to Imaro moot. If no one feels like answering them, that's fine, but the answers aren't moot to me (I am genuinely interested in the anwers if anyone cares to respond) and (despite what you, personally, may think) I DON'T pretend to have any foreknowledge about what the actual answers will be. Since I'm the one asking the questions I would think that's all that is required to render them relevant.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I disagree that this is the issue under discussion. I think the issue under discussion was defined pretty clearly by the OP and the above isn't it.

Sure it is.

If there is are differences in adventures done in a sandbox style setting and adventures which have been done in a more scripted to the PC's setting, then there may be value in using different nomeclature to differentiate between the two.

Both of the things you quoted are essentially paraphrases of the same idea. Asking "Are A and B the same thing?" and "Are A and B not the same thing?" are the exact same in terms of actual meaning as relates to any real discussion (as opposed to mere argument for the sake of argument, or rather hollow attempts to "win" by strawmanning the other position).

I know I would have bought a lot fewer 2e modules had there been a clear nomenclature.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Hmm... All this discussion makes me wonder if a separate thread where each person describes:

1a) How is a session (adventure/situation) developed?
1b) How is a typical session played out?

2a) How is a campaign developed?
2b) How does the campaign play out?

This may be harder or easier to describe depending on someone's style. But perhaps seeing how each person actually does the game could give some perspective.