Gaming in an open enviroment

[barsoomcore]

Bastoche, I suspect that you being a player rather than a DM leads to your focus on providing the players with what THEY need, which of course IS the goal of any DM, but my focus is on those times when as a DM I fail to predict what my players need. It would make sense to me that you aren't quite grasping how important it is for a DM to be able to handle cases in which they fail to predict their players, given that you are not an experienced DM.

Because otherwise, your description of reality utterly contradicts my experience. I do not live in a world where I know ahead of time what is or isn't going to happen. You keep insisting that you live in a world where EVERYTHING that is prepared turns out to be important. I don't know that world, I don't live in that world, and so I guess that's why I keep asking the same question over and over again, and you keep not answering it.

Your PCs arrive in a new town. Player X says, "I'm just going to spend the day walking around, talking to people and finding out what's going on around town."

What do you say?

Well, in such a play style, never will a player say such a thing.

Hey, if you can't answer the question, just say so. Don't pretend you can predict human behaviour. Are you seriously suggesting that you can dictate to your players the sorts of questions they can and cannot ask?

The question was, WHAT IF this happens? How does the DM respond? You don't get to just pretend that your control over reality is so complete that you can prevent somebody from speaking. It's stuff like this that I just can't imagine any experienced DM not understanding.

TRY running a mystery your way sometimes. The players will start asking around: "What were YOU doing at the time of the killing? Where's the body? What was the weapon used? When did it happen? Who saw what happened? Where?" You're telling me that you can seriously just make that crap up on the spot, have it be consistent and turn out to be a satisfying story? That you have in fact actually DONE this? I frankly don't believe you have.

There are SOME facts that you need to have in your head to get the adventure started. WHO was killed. WHERE the body was found. In what condition the body was found. Who found it. You need to be able to answer the question, "Where were you when the lights went out?" of any and all potential suspects (keeping in mind that the players will almost certainly surprise you with who they consider a suspect). I find making that up on the fly outrageously difficult, especially given that my end goal is to deliver a fun, thrilling game to my players, and so I try to prepare my answers to those things ahead of time.

Now of course you might change your mind half-way through the session, come up with an idea that seems brilliant, and alter the story based on PC input, or just to make their line of investigation more fruitful and avoid boring them with an unproductive game session. Your job is to make things fun, not necessarily to enforce any pre-determined set of conditions or actions.

The distinction comes from the fact that in your way, the various plot lines are pre-written

Please. I DON'T write out the plot of my campaign ahead of time. Period. Full stop. Never ever. Not at all. In no way, fashion or means do I do anything remotely resembling this, and I have said so many many many many times.

I think about my NPCs, what they want, and what they're likely to do, and I make notes on their actions while the PCs are doing THEIR thing, so that should the PCs encounter those NPCs, I don't have to invent on the spot what they've been doing for the past year or whatever. And because often as I'm considering what the NPCs are up to, I come up with ideas for things to happen to the PCs. These are NOT "plot lines" being "pre-written". I have NO IDEA what the plot line of my campaign will look like. All I do is come up with ideas for what my NPCs are doing, what sorts of natural (or unnatural) phenomena would be fun to suddenly inflict on my PCs, and then see what happens as a result.

You are always referring to PCs as clearly embarked on some story or another. It seems like in your world, the PCs always know what they're doing, why and what they need to do in order to accomplish their goal. This has never been the exclusive case in any campaign I've ever run. SOMETIMES this is the case. Sometimes indeed they come into town, looking to solve the murder, and their actions are focused and directed and more or less easy to predict. Sometimes, however, not so much. After they've solved the murder and handed the suspect over to the authorities, it may not be so crystal clear what's up next. I may THINK I know what they're going to want to do (and I might have very good evidence to suggest that I know -- like my players' own words on the matter), but I'm not always right about that, and so sometimes I develop material that I end up not using.

Sometimes my players just feel like asking around to see what's doing. Crazy fun adventures have resulted from nothing more than that.

LostSoul's description of Open games well describes the kinds of games I'm trying to describe, and the kinds of games I run. It seems weird that we're in agreement on THAT, but so opposed in our own descriptions. Perhaps we haven't been expressing our ideas super-well.

 

[LostSoul]

LostSoul's description of Open games well describes the kinds of games I'm trying to describe, and the kinds of games I run. It seems weird that we're in agreement on THAT, but so opposed in our own descriptions. Perhaps we haven't been expressing our ideas super-well.

I always felt we were on the same page. I was just having trouble getting some of my thoughts across because I was (and still am) struggling with the whole choices/consequences thing. So I think you were getting your point across, but I wasn't because my ideas are not that well-formed even in my own head!

I think it would have worked out better if I had put out examples of actual play.

 

[Bastoche]

First:

Please. I DON'T write out the plot of my campaign ahead of time. Period. Full stop. Never ever. Not at all. In no way, fashion or means do I do anything remotely resembling this, and I have said so many many many many times.

I'm not talking about campaign plot. I'm talking about that plot the players stumbled upon a t that time. For ex. the Al-Tizim thing. Something was prepared, they passed right by. So be it! If not, there would have NPCs and "scripts" of "what happens when the PC do X?"

Second: I have a good DMing experience. I just happen to be player right now. I've been RPGing for about 15 year and in all those years I've run quite a few campaigns. And I just happen to have realized a lot of things during this campaign because it's the first time I've ever felt so "awkward" during play. Something was "wrong" from the start that I couldn't put my finger on until I went on the Forge forum and tried to diagnose our problem. I've played and DM great, nice and sucky campaigns. But never sucky because of a clash of styles.

Third: be careful here that I'm not talking of "open-ended" playing in general. I'm talking about a very specific type of open gaming. Open gaming many suggested here is possible be requires a tremendous effort of prep time. The specific type I'm talking about here is one that maximize optimization time AFAIK.

For the rest. Who did the murder, who was murdered is irrelevant to the players. It's an excuse to have them face critical choices. And the encounters are not designed to allow them to find who did the murder at the proper challenge rating and then face the murderer. It's an excuse to have the players question themselves about the values of their character. The murderer is my lover should I turn her/him over or escape with her/him to redeem her/himself? And such choices possibilities are what you are looking for in the background. In Lost Soul's example of open ended gamist play, there is one possible problem (I've personnally encountered it). It's lacking the dimension of purpose. If the player wants to play a ranger because of a certain feature or concept concerning the class. that's what the DM should build the campaign around. If the Fav enemy: orc was chosen as an afterthought, he might very well not feel attracted to the idea of campaigning against orcs.

So the important part is character creation and in that part, not only must the background allow for plot hooks to be created but they have to be there on purpose. An example of easy going open ended gamist gaming is having the 4 players suggesting a common background feature to their character and one that MUST be critically important to all of them. It could be a common hatred for orcs or undeads or they may be part of an army (and dutyful and loyal to it). They have to feel compelled to accomplished their common goal. With that in mind, you can either have a very closed (voluntarily railroaded by character design) and plan a campaign for which the player will voluntarily follow any lead you throw at them. Or you can have open ended gaming and have them suggest whatever they figure would further their own ends.

The problem with the later is that if the players do not agree that the "common goal" is an excuse to engage in a "test our commitment to the cause" game or something similar, you will be unable to predict their every moves. However if the goal of the game is solely to test the commitment, then you can throw encounters at them that will test such commitment and then you never know where you'll end up, but you do know that the perparation is used.

An example of the orc slaying commitment. Suppose the players face an encounter is which they could let a mountain crumble over thousands of orcs but on the other hand, there is X innocent people that might be rescued from the horde. They could decide to let the mountain fall (which would require then certain actions to be performed and that would be the gaming session of the day) or they could face the horde and save the 5 people... but letting thousands of orcs roam free! You know they will not say "Hum... Let's scratch that and return to the nearest village".

So in other words, what is missing in your argument is the fact that the players are commited to the encounters up from character creation. So "world" is not built on one side and the characters on the other and then a mix is made. The world is made for the characters concedering what they offer in terms of purpose and commitment (rather than generic "plot hooks").

The problem with D&D 3E for such a play style is that from a mechanics point of view, there's no reward for "commiting" nor is there any penalities for not commiting (beyond the in-game conscquences it can cause). That's why games like the riddle of steel or dogs in the vineyard are much better suited for such a play. The reward system is such that no matter what you choose (value 1 or value 2), you gain "XP" and you do not (or lose) if you pick "the 3rd option" so players ALWAYS choose something among the offered choices and don't come up with "something new". And yet depending on the game, they could. If so, then they must get commited to something else for long enough. If not, other players around the table will get frustrated and blame the "shapechanger" of being a "bad roleplayer".

And to return to the open ended gamist suggestion, I gave one very early in the thread, stupid me, Donjon from anvilwreks press.

 

[jdrakeh]

Odd. I've DM'd for about 20 years off and on, and I wouldn't even know how run a campaign that wasn't "Open". How would one even run one that wasn't?

Good example...

I just had my application for a local V:TM group turned down because I stated that I didn't like chronicles in which the Storyteller creates your sire and then uses them as a walking deus ex device to beat, pester, or otherwise force a PC into following a pre-scripted plotline. This is the opposite of an open game

Older versions of the Vampire game openly advocated that a PC's sire be used in exactly this manner, and it made games incredibly unfun (well, unless you got into RPGs to be forcefully lead around by the nose thorugh somebody else's pre-constructed story arc). Some of the worst games that I'ver ever played were specifically bad bacuse the GM was a strict adherant to this idealogy of what a roleplaying game should be about.

Now, later Vampire supplements and games (Dark Ages: Vampire, for example) de-emphasized this approach to sires and storytelling, but some people really clung to the old paradigm (for whatever reason). If you want an example of what a 'closed' game looks like, go eyeball copies of The Giovanni Chrionicle or The Transylvania Chronicles. These two chronicles are extremely heavy-handed on the deus ex railroading.

Now, I'm not going to say that closed adventures are bad, but the difference between a closed game and an open game is the difference between watching a movie or reading a book and acting in a movie or writing a book. I got into RPGs to create stories, not be guided through pre-existing ones. I understand that some people really like the latter approach to play, but I'm not one of them.

Really, in retrospect, it was probably a good thing that my application to the Vampire game in question was turned down. I can say with 100% certainty that I would have been absolutely miserable playing through a completely pre-scripted story arc.

 

[Bastoche]

Good example...

I just had my application for a local V:TM group turned down because I stated that I didn't like chronicles in which the Storyteller creates your sire and then uses them as a walking deus ex device to beat, pester, or otherwise force a PC into following a pre-scripted plotline. This is the opposite of an open game

Older versions of the Vampire game openly advocated that a PC's sire be used in exactly this manner, and it made games incredibly unfun (well, unless you got into RPGs to be forcefully lead around by the nose thorugh somebody else's pre-constructed story arc). Some of the worst games that I'ver ever played were specifically bad bacuse the GM was a strict adherant to this idealogy of what a roleplaying game should be about.

Now, later Vampire supplements and games (Dark Ages: Vampire, for example) de-emphasized this approach to sires and storytelling, but some people really clung to the old paradigm (for whatever reason). If you want an example of what a 'closed' game looks like, go eyeball copies of The Giovanni Chrionicle or The Transylvania Chronicles. These two chronicles are extremely heavy-handed on the deus ex railroading.

Now, I'm not going to say that closed adventures are bad, but the difference between a closed game and an open game is the difference between watching a movie or reading a book and acting in a movie or writing a book. I got into RPGs to create stories, not be guided through pre-existing ones. I understand that some people really like the latter approach to play, but I'm not one of them.

Really, in retrospect, it was probably a good thing that my application to the Vampire game in question was turned down. I can say with 100% certainty that I would have been absolutely miserable playing through a completely pre-scripted story arc.

Yes.

 

[jdrakeh]

Theoretically you might be right. Realistically, however, there is no campaign which is COMPLETELY open.

Depends. Formless games are completely, 100%, open in this sense - the only rules in effect are those drafted by the players prior to the start of play. Every Formless game begins with a completely blank slate.

Completely open campaigns can and do exist, not just theoretically, but realistically, as well. The problem is that it requires an incredible level of trust and cooperation to create and/or play such a campaign - a level of cooperation and trust that most people don't possess (well, in my experience, anyhow).

Open games, as Bastoche defines them, can and do exist (e.g., Formless, Engle Matrix Games, Nomic, etc) - they merely aren't very accessible for a number of different reasons, the least of which is not the level of trust and cooperation between players that is required to make them work.

[Note: Engle Matrix, and Nomic games do have basic rules - but the one rule that governs all others is that rules are mutable ]

 

[barsoomcore]

I'm not talking about campaign plot. I'm talking about that plot the players stumbled upon at that time.

Are you using some special definition of "plot" that means "intention"? Because that's what I do -- I come up with intentions for my NPCs. What they will ACTUALLY do depends on what works in-game.

be careful here that I'm not talking of "open-ended" playing in general. I'm talking about a very specific type of open gaming.

Yes, that's clear.

For the rest. Who did the murder, who was murdered is irrelevant to the players.

How do you know? What players are you talking about? Certainly not ALL players. And yet again, you're apparently in possession of spectacular precognitive telepathic abilities that allow you to determine exactly what your players do or don't want. Lacking such abilities, I do the best I can.

It's an excuse to have them face critical choices.

Well, duh. Any good story is about people facing difficult choices. And determining what is or isn't going to turn out to be a difficult choice isn't always straightforward.

Yet again, you seem to think I possess the ability to read minds. I have always found the most difficult part of DMing has been when my players catch me off-guard. When I find that I've planned material that doesn't get used because my players do something other than what I expected, I usually plan to use that material later, somehow.

I don't see why you think that's such a big deal, or indicative of some profound difference in play style. Nor can I understand why you refuse to answer my questions.

If the goal of the game is solely to test the commitment, then you can throw encounters at them that will test such commitment and then you never know where you'll end up, but you do know that the perparation is used.

What? How does having a particular goal suddenly give you supernatural powers? Do your players never shift intentions in mid-game? Do they never change their mind and not tell you? Do they never discover that what they REALLY want is different than what they SAID they wanted? Have you never been WRONG about what you thought people wanted?

So in other words, what is missing in your argument is the fact that the players are commited to the encounters up from character creation.

It sounds like you're unclear on my argument. My apologies. My argument is that DMs always face the issue of what to do about prepared material that doesn't get used. None of the statements you've made have described a way to avoid that -- they all presuppose it never happens.

 

[Torm]

Every Formless game begins with a completely blank slate.

These games still exist in the physical universe, right? Then they can't be completely blank slates. The person or people running the game are still bound by the effects that living in a physical universe like our own has had on their perceptions, and can't get outside of them.

(P.S. I'm not really nitpicking you, so much as continuing to have a bit of fun at the expense of our friends here who still seem stuck in a perpetual semantical argument. )

 

[barsoomcore]

I'm not really nitpicking you, so much as continuing to have a bit of fun at the expense of our friends here who are relishing a perpetual semantical argument.

Fixed it for you.