Forked Thread: Slippery Road to Railing

[takasi]

Forked from: Dookie in the Sandbox?

DMing is like obedience training. There are positive rewards for good behavior, like a pet or a treat, and there are negative rewards for bad behavior, like a swat on the nose with a newspaper. Most obedience trainers would not encourage negative rewards.

Event based world evolving games are very negative. If you don't do a certain thing by a certain time then the world will change for the worse. I think rat bastard DMs tend to lean towards this style of gaming. Also, a good writer will probably prefer this style. It's easier to make players follow his story, and even though he won't admit it that's a better thing for him because he's a better writer. I think this may also be why many modern day module authors who get far more kudos today through email and message boards prefer to encourage these types of games, to the point of writing an entire group's campaign for them in advance.

Site based status quo games are primarily positive. If a player does absolutely nothing, they will not be punished. The world will pretty much be exactly as it was last week, month or year. If they want to live their entire life in an inn, so be it. The only time the world changes is when players do something good. This makes the DM follow their story.

In site based games, DMs have no idea what changes will happen in the world, because it depends on what the players do next. In event based games DMs can say 'I can make story changes even if the players do nothing', and this is exactly how the slippery road to railing begins.

A positive rewarding DM will help build an exciting world that evolves as players take action, not devolves as players take inaction. This is a good theme for medieval fantasy. There are monsters, and life sucks. Only when heroes step up and conquer evil will there be progress. People within the world understand this. But some DMs prefer to offer a dark spiral of death, with dark plots and events in place that threaten a cushy starting point (that honestly, most players really won't care about when they first start playing). I play medieval fantasy because it represents dark times, when evil has won and society has crumbled. Where monsters are real and all hope is lost until heroes emerge.

I know not everyone plays this style, but I prefer traditional sword and sorcery. Where civilization is ruled by evil and/or ignorant leadership. Where most people live in slavery and/or poverty. Where there are signs everywhere that things were better at one time. Adventurers rise up from the ashes and make a change in the world for the better. There is little to no consequence if you die in battle, because hope was lost long ago. Only the greatest of all can deliver society from evil.

 

[coyote6]

Site based status quo games are primarily positive. If a player does absolutely nothing, they will not be punished.

Well, they'll probably be bored; that sounds like punishment to me.

 

[kitsune9]

Forked from: Dookie in the Sandbox?

While I can see the point of the OP, the question we have to ask DM's who try the site-based campaign is how many of your players have just sat there and done nothing expecting you (the DM) to provide them with something. I read a lot of posts of unthankful players, lazy players, etc., so it would seem that there are groups out there that if the DM doesn't present an adventure, the players have their character do nothing, or worse yet, they get bored and start terrorizing the locals.

I won't railroad my players back to the module though. If the players want to go "off map", that's their choice. I do tend to avoid the race against time modules though, but if the players know that if they do nothing, the bad guys will eventually win.

 

[Ariosto]

I cannot recall ever playing in a static environment except as part of a "railroad" scenario (such as a tournament module).

Practical logistics make it easier (and, at least for some, more desirable) to keep focus on a narrow "story" -- regardless of whether the DM is more reactive or the players are -- with a regular cast of characters in every, or nearly every, session. That the focus should be so tight, though, that nothing ever changes except by the players' actions would (from what I have seen) be most extraordinary in an ongoing campaign.

That players should consider a world with a "life" of its own some sort of "punishment" is a suggestion that just boggles me.

 

[Desdichado]

That players should consider a world with a "life" of its own some sort of "punishment" is a suggestion that just boggles me.

Me too. As is the idea that showing a potential plot hook to a player is "railroading". I literally have no concept of playing in a game like the kind that takasi is idealizing. The closest thing I've done to it would be some kind of CRPG or MMO. Which, in my opinion, is a perfectly fine medium for this sort of game. Because the expressed playstyle does almost everything you can to minimize the benefits of having an actual, living GM involved with running your game. I can't get my head around so extreme an expression of the sandbox concept; I thought that that was more a theoretical ideal rather than an actually viable real campaign model.

But... how is this thread different from the other thread? You just requoted the original post again. Was there supposed to be some guidelines on how you expected this thread to differ from the other thread?

 

[takasi]

But... how is this thread different from the other thread? You just requoted the original post again. Was there supposed to be some guidelines on how you expected this thread to differ from the other thread?

My mistake. I knew when I posted on the other thread that it was going to sidetrack the original post, which was meant more for describing your general game styles and what problems you've had with sandbox play. I guess I'll report this thread and ask the mods to delete it.

 

[Desdichado]

Probably better to merge them.

 

[Umbran]

Closed at request of OP. Please see original thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?postid=4863944