D&D 5E Character play vs Player play

[pemerton]

As I recall, Tomb of Horrors was deliberately written for high level characters and he wrote Tomb of Horrors , because a lot of people were bragging about their high level characters despite having not played nearly as long as his own players whose characters were not nearly as high a level. ToH was easy way to smack down those players and demonstrate that the players had not the skill to have earned characters of such high level

When I reread my post I saw that it wasn't fully coherent.

What I meant to say was that when Gygax wanted to write a high level module he was capable of doing so - and ToH and Isle of the Ape are the two main examples.

 

[pemerton]

Naw, it's clear enough if you're not out to deliberately misread it.

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” Bilbo via J.R.R. Tolkien

I'm not "deliberately misreading" it - it implies that tailored encounters "adapt themselves to the PCs", which is an ingame/real-world confusion.

There are other oddities also - for instance, the unstated but pretty obvious assumption that combat is the main mode of encounter resolution, which connects to an assumption that players won't have their PCs flee unless the GM tells them in advance to be ready to do so.

Classic AD&D had evasion and pursuit rules for just these purposes; their absence from 3E is part of what makes me read some of this stuff about fleeing rather than fighting as pretty railroad-y.

It's the codification of what GMs were doing anyway for a long time, either writing (or buying) their adventures to suit the present group or building a sandbox setting and letting their players explore the parts of it as they would with whatever level their PCs happened to be at the time.

Sandbox exploration is not recommended either in Moldvay Basic or in Gygax's DMG. So the "codification" you are referring to goes back to the late-70s/early-80s period.

Both Moldvay and Gygax recommend building a dungeon suitable for low-level PCs, and neither suggests that wilderness encounter tables will be used as part of the journey to that dungeon.

In Moldvay this is obvious from the fact that the rules have no wilderness encounter tables, nor in fact any rules for non-dungeon exploration. In Gygax, the relevant discussion is on pp 86-7 and 96:

Rome wasn't built in a day. You are probably just learning so take small steps at first. The milieu for initial adventures should be kept to a size commensurate with the needs of campaign participants . . . This will typically result in our giving them a brief background, placing them in a settlement, and stating that they should prepare themselves to find and explore the dungeon/ruin they know is nearby. . . .

Your participants are now eagerly awaiting instructions from you as to how to find the place they are eager to seek their fortunes in. . . . You inform them that . . . one of the braver villagers will serve as a guide if they wish to explore the ruins! . . .

You inform them that after about a two mile trek along a seldom-used road, they come to the edge of a fen. . . . You describe the general bleakness of the bog . . . [T]he party has only one place to go - along the causeway - if they wish to adventure. The leading member of the group . . . orders that the party should proceed along the raised pathway to the monastery, and the real adventure begins.​

a dungeon being populated with more difficult "monsters" the deeper you go isn't done because PCs might start off weak and get stronger as they go deeper, it is to show a hierarchy of toughness, if you will, among "monsters" in regard to a setting. This is a setting conceit that doesn't restrict PCs from finding a way to get deeper even if they aren't ready for it.

Dungeon levels, and the hierarchy of monsters that goes with it, is about as metagame as it gets! The overlay of a "setting conceit" is an obvious figleaf.

It's true that players may find themselves on the "wrong" level, but for lower-level PCs that is typically a marker of poor or unlucky play (eg not noticing that they were walking down a sloping passage, falling down a pit trap, etc), while for higher-level PCs it may be part of a strategy of "playing it safe" - which the GM is directed to push back against in the XP rules.

In OD&D the relevant push-back was the XP multiplier of character level over dungeon level (ie high level PCs on low dungeon levels receive only fractional XP). In AD&D that is revised (DMG, p 84) to a rule that XP are to be multiplied by a fraction of total monster HD by total PC levels in those circumstances where the numerator is less than the denominator.

The existence of these rules, whose function is to push high level PCs onto lower levels if the players of those PCs want to get XP advancement, belies the notion of dungeon levels as a mere setting conceit.

 

[Mark CMG]

I'm not "deliberately misreading" it - it implies that tailored encounters "adapt themselves to the PCs", which is an ingame/real-world confusion.

There are other oddities also - for instance, the unstated but pretty obvious assumption that combat is the main mode of encounter resolution, which connects to an assumption that players won't have their PCs flee unless the GM tells them in advance to be ready to do so.

Classic AD&D had evasion and pursuit rules for just these purposes; their absence from 3E is part of what makes me read some of this stuff about fleeing rather than fighting as pretty railroad-y.

You seem to be making leaps based on what you expect to find or based on omissions of specific information countering what you suggest is assumed.

Sandbox exploration is not recommended (. . .)

You need look no further than the suggestion of using the map board from Outdoor Survival game in (O)D&D but, again, giving tips on how to get a setting started to new GMs in the 1E AD&D DMG isn't a question of tailoring the setting to the PCs but rather staying ahead of the players needs until such time as a homebrewed setting can be more fully ready to explore. This misconception on your part is a product of reading something with eyes now used to reading all that has come later rather than reading things for what they were. That's where some of the deliberate misreading comes in.

Dungeon levels, and the hierarchy of monsters that goes with it, is about as metagame as it gets!

I've discussed conflating metagaming and authorial control in previous posts, the OP subject rather than the side discussion which rages on.

 

[Lanefan]

There are other oddities also - for instance, the unstated but pretty obvious assumption that combat is the main mode of encounter resolution, which connects to an assumption that players won't have their PCs flee unless the GM tells them in advance to be ready to do so.

Classic AD&D had evasion and pursuit rules for just these purposes; their absence from 3E is part of what makes me read some of this stuff about fleeing rather than fighting as pretty railroad-y.

Seconded by the main if not only way of earning experience points after 1e being combat. 1e specifically states characters are to get the same xp for avoiding an encounter as for defeating it; that advice (and mindset) faded into the background in 2e and vanished thereafter.

Sandbox exploration is not recommended either in Moldvay Basic or in Gygax's DMG. So the "codification" you are referring to goes back to the late-70s/early-80s period.

Both Moldvay and Gygax recommend building a dungeon suitable for low-level PCs, and neither suggests that wilderness encounter tables will be used as part of the journey to that dungeon.

In Moldvay this is obvious from the fact that the rules have no wilderness encounter tables, nor in fact any rules for non-dungeon exploration. In Gygax, the relevant discussion is on pp 86-7 and 96:

Rome wasn't built in a day. You are probably just learning so take small steps at first. The milieu for initial adventures should be kept to a size commensurate with the needs of campaign participants . . . This will typically result in our giving them a brief background, placing them in a settlement, and stating that they should prepare themselves to find and explore the dungeon/ruin they know is nearby. . . .

Your participants are now eagerly awaiting instructions from you as to how to find the place they are eager to seek their fortunes in. . . . You inform them that . . . one of the braver villagers will serve as a guide if they wish to explore the ruins! . . .

You inform them that after about a two mile trek along a seldom-used road, they come to the edge of a fen. . . . You describe the general bleakness of the bog . . . [T]he party has only one place to go - along the causeway - if they wish to adventure. The leading member of the group . . . orders that the party should proceed along the raised pathway to the monastery, and the real adventure begins.​

However, look at the context. Both Moldvay and Gygax are speaking to brand new DMs here, quite safe in the (accurate, in my experience) knowledge that once a DM gets some experience she'll be able to craft something of a world around the PCs either before or during play.

Never mind that even in the early days there were several quasi-canned settings one could use as a jumping-off point: the overview map in X1 Isle of Dread being one, City State of the Invincible Overlord being another, and of course Greyhawk once it came out.

In OD&D the relevant push-back was the XP multiplier of character level over dungeon level (ie high level PCs on low dungeon levels receive only fractional XP). In AD&D that is revised (DMG, p 84) to a rule that XP are to be multiplied by a fraction of total monster HD by total PC levels in those circumstances where the numerator is less than the denominator.

The existence of these rules, whose function is to push high level PCs onto lower levels if the players of those PCs want to get XP advancement, belies the notion of dungeon levels as a mere setting conceit.

While I know these guidelines exist I've never bothered following them. If the PCs want to do nothing but kill things far below their fighting weight then so be it; they'll get the same xp for killing an Orc no matter what their character level, and the J-curve advancement tables will take care of it. (in other words, the numbers eventually become so trivially small that dividing them down even further seems pointless)

Lanefan

 

[Sadras]

Sandbox exploration is not recommended either in Moldvay Basic or in Gygax's DMG. So the "codification" you are referring to goes back to the late-70s/early-80s period.

Both Moldvay and Gygax recommend building a dungeon suitable for low-level PCs, and neither suggests that wilderness encounter tables will be used as part of the journey to that dungeon.

In Moldvay this is obvious from the fact that the rules have no wilderness encounter tables, nor in fact any rules for non-dungeon exploration.

Why don't you look at the Expert rulebook? Everyone knows Expert was all about wilderness and exploration - it couldn't get anymore sandbox. It is like me stating that becoming an immortal is not recommended and siting the Expert rulebook alone without taking the remaining rulebooks in the series into account.

 

[Hussar]

Why don't you look at the Expert rulebook? Everyone knows Expert was all about wilderness and exploration - it couldn't get anymore sandbox. It is like me stating that becoming an immortal is not recommended and siting the Expert rulebook alone without taking the remaining rulebooks in the series into account.

Interesting. Here's what the Expert rulebook has to say about random encounters:

"But I rolled it!" A common mistake most DMs make is to rely too much on random die rolls. An entire evening can be spoiled if an unplanned wilderness encounter on the way to the dungeon goes badly for the party. The DM must use good judgement in addition to random tables. Encounters should be scaled to the strength of the party and should be in harmony with the theme of the adventure

Hrm, sounds like tailored encounters to me. Or am I still misreading things and failing to understand the stuff that I played through back in the day.

 

[Mark CMG]

Interesting. Here's what the Expert rulebook has to say about random encounters:

Hrm, sounds like tailored encounters to me. Or am I still misreading things and failing to understand the stuff that I played through back in the day.

I think you are right to point that out as proto-tailoring and it likely mimicked what many GMs were already doing in their home games. It's obviously thin on details of how to do it but certainly puts the GMs in a mind to consider it good form in games where folks aren't just randomly exploring a sandbox but going to a pre-planned adventure. Is that the 1981 edition or later?

 

[Hussar]

I think you are right to point that out as proto-tailoring and it likely mimicked what many GMs were already doing in their home games. It's obviously thin on details of how to do it but certainly puts the GMs in a mind to consider it good form in games where folks aren't just randomly exploring a sandbox but going to a pre-planned adventure. Is that the 1981 edition or later?

'81 isn't it? It's Moldvay, so, I guess 81. Book's not in front of me right now.

 

[Mark CMG]

'81 isn't it? It's Moldvay, so, I guess 81. Book's not in front of me right now.

I think that's right. I'm more concerned about getting grief for coining the term "proto-tailoring!"

 

[pemerton]

Why don't you look at the Expert rulebook? Everyone knows Expert was all about wilderness and exploration

I'm familiar with the Cook/Marsh Expert rulebook (which is the sequel to Moldvay Basic - I'm not commenting on the Mentzer versions). But that doesn't change what was written by Moldvay in his rulebook, nor does it change what was written by Gygax in his DMG.

Both give very similar advice on how to start a campaign, and none of that advice is about building a sandbox world for the PCs to explore. It is about building a single dungeon, which the PCs must travel to if the players want to play the game, and that dungeon is expected to be suitable for exploration by low-level PCs.

You need look no further than the suggestion of using the map board from Outdoor Survival game in (O)D&D but, again, giving tips on how to get a setting started to new GMs in the 1E AD&D DMG isn't a question of tailoring the setting to the PCs but rather staying ahead of the players needs until such time as a homebrewed setting can be more fully ready to explore.

Recommendatins in the original D&D rulebooks don't, of themselves, affect the content of the DMG. The fact that the DMG takes a somewhat different approach suggests that Gygax may have been aware of developments in the play of the game.

Also - what is the meaning of the phrase "the players' needs"? What they need is stuff to do when playing the game. What does that stuff consist in? Exciting adventures (further quotes from the DMG below support this). What makes an adventure exciting? In part, that it is feasible for the players (via their PCs) to undertake, where feasibility includes considerations of mechanical capability.

In the megadungeon context, the dungeon is not just a sandbox to be explored. Players are expected to do their best to make sensible judgements about dungeon level and hence dungeon difficulty. This is part of what makes for skilled play. Players of low-level PCs are of course free to try their hand at lower dungeon levels and see how they go - but this is not primarily about exploration, it's about testing one's skill (and luck).

Is that the 1981 edition or later?

The passage that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] quoted appears on p X59 of my copy of the Expert rulebook, which is labelled "(C) 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981" and also "First printing - January, 1981". On the same page there is also the remark that "Part of the art of expert DMing is to keep th campaign challenging for the players."

There is also the related advice from Gygax on p 9 of his DMG (my copy says "Revised Edition - December, 1979" although it is a later imprint with the "Gates of Hell" cover):

Read how and why the system is as it is, follow the pararameters, and then cut portions as needed to maintain excitement. For example, the rules call for wandering monsters, but these can be not only irritating - if not deadly - but the appearance of such can actually spoil a game by interfering with an orderly expedition. You have set up an area full of clever tricks and traps, populated it with well-thought-out creature complexes, given clues about it to pique players' interest, and the group has worked hard to supply themselves with everything by way of information and equipment they will need to face and overcome the imagined perils. They are gathered together and eager to spend an enjoyable evening playing their favourite game, with the expectation of going to a new, strange area and doing their best to triumph. They are willing to accept the hazards of the dice, be it loss of items, wounding, insanity, disease, death, as long as the process is exciting. But lo!, everytime you throw the "monster die" a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party's strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. Spells expended, battered and wounded, the characters trek back to their base. Expectations have been dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die. No, don't allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game. Wandering monsters, however, are included for two reasons, as is explained in the section about them. If a party deserves to have the beasties inflicted upon them, that is another matter, but in the example above it is assumed that they are doing everthing possible to travel quickly and quietly to their planned destination. If you work as DM has been sufficient, the players will have all they can handle upon arrival, so let them get there, give them a chance. The game is the thing, and certain rules can be distorted or disregarded altogether in favour of play.​

This is consistent with Gygax's later suggestion (p 110) that the GM might fudge a die roll "to give [the players] an edge in finding a particular clue, eg a secret door that leads to a complx of monsters and teasures that will be espcially entertaining."

None of this present sandbox exploration as the default mode of play. If anything, its tenor is the opposite - that the players will be heading to particular areas of the dungeon that they have reason to think will be rewarding in play, and that the GM will take steps - providing clues and information in game, fudging rolls to find secret doors, ignoring disruptive wandering monster rolls - to ensure that those areas of the dungeon actually come into play.

It is also possible to see the beginnings of illuionist play in these passages - because at the same time that Gygax is telling GMs that if a group of players plan well, random encounters shouldn't be allowed to disrupt their PCs arrival at the desired area of the dungeon, in his PHB (p 109) Gygax is telling players that they should:

Avoid unnecessary encounters. This advice usually means the diffrence between success and failure when it is followed intelligently. Your party has an objective [assuming that the players have followed the advice on p 107], and wandering monsters are something which stand between them and it. The easiest way to overcome such difficulties is to avoid the interposing or trailing creature if at all possible. Wandering monsters typically weaken the party through use of equipment and spells against them, and they also weaken the group by inflicting damage. Very few are going to be helpful; fewer still will have anything of value to the party. Run first and ask questions later. In the same vein, shun encounters with creatures found to be dwelling permanently in the dungeon (as far as you can tell, that is) unless such creatures are part of the set objective or the monster stands between the group and the goal it has set out to gain. Do not be sidetracked. A good referee will have many ways to distract an expedition, many things to draw attention, but ignore them if at all possible. The mappers must note all such things, and another expedition might be in order another day to investigate or destroy something or some monster, but always stay with what was planned if at all possible, and wait for another day to handle the other matters. This [is] not to say that something hanging like a ripe fruit ready to be plucked must be bypassed, but be relatively certain that what appears to be the cas actually is.​

Both the DMG and the PHB passage have the same aim: that good play should be rewarded. But the PHB passage suggests that the reward consists in avoiding the adverse consequence which will otherwise flow from engaging the obstacles that the GM will place between players and desired dungeon objective; whereas the DMG passage suggests that, if the players have the right attitude and approach towards avoiding those obstacles, then the GM should hold back on even placing those obstacles where the process of avoidance will overshadow the more exciting prospect of exploring the desired area of the dungeon. On this latter approach, the reward for good play is in not facing obstacles at all.

Reconciling the tension between these two approaches to rewarding good play has driven a lot of RPG design. "Say yes" approaches are among them. So is dropping Gygax's notions of "excitement" and "especially entertaining" in favour of treating world exploration, including wandering monsters as part of that, as the principal goal of play.