I still stand by the following view: if every option in "the adventure" funnels the players to B, then getting to B is not a challenge. And so having a sister open the door to B; or having the GM just drop B into play using their (extensive) power to manage the background and frame scenes; is not circumventing any challenge.
It feels like the journey is a big part of a lot of classic modules and classic adventure stories?
Is dropping the players right off at the Tomb of Annihilation, or Frodo and Sam right at Mt. Doom missing a lot? Why can't finding the information about the Dragon (or whatever it was) be an important part of the quest (albeit, probably not as important or long as going to and through Mordor)?
It feels like the journey is a big part of a lot of classic modules and classic adventure stories?
Is dropping the players right off at the Tomb of Annihilation, or Frodo and Sam right at Mt. Doom missing a lot? Why can't finding the information about the Dragon (or whatever it was) be an important part of the quest (albeit, probably not as important or long as going to and through Mordor)?
But, here's the thing. From the player's perspective, they have no control over that. They don't know what they don't know. So, finding information about the Dragon relies on the DM providing avenues for learning that information and the players figuring out which avenues will provide that information. And, they don't even know if that information exists.
So, it pushes the players into a much more passive role where the DM provides all the steps leading to learning about that Dragon. And, no one is allowed to short circuit those steps. So, the players have no real incentive to actively engage in anything. They simply react to whatever the DM puts in front of them.
And, frankly, there's nothing wrong with this style of play. There are many things to recommend it. Pacing, for one. If the DM has that much control over the session, then you don't have to faff about trying to figure out what to do next. Plus, you get a considerable level of clarity which certainly cannot be underestimated. The players know that if they do X, that will lead to the next step. Clear goal and reward. This is not a bad thing. Additionally, it keeps the group focused on marching in a similar direction. If Dave can short circuit Point A, and John short circuits Point B and Susan Point C, then suddenly, poof, the adventure is done and no one really had any fun.
It's all about balancing the different priorities and there certainly is not one method that will always work.
Like you say, @Cadence, if you want a Journey to Mordor, then obviously the Giant Eagles are off doing something else.
I'd take it even a step further than that. Most DM's don't understand odds. The reward has to be GREATER than the risk or it simply isn't worth it. If you (as a simple example) double damage but double the risk of failure, then, well, why would I bother? There's no upside to that. If you want to double the chance of failure, you need to triple the reward.
For one thing, outside the most basic of combat advantages vs disadvantages, there's no way to make that comparison cleanly and clearly.
For another thing, that's... just not how RPGs work. Let us say the GM offers you an option that is clearly in your favor. Any downside is blatantly and obviously countered by the upside. You would be stupid to take it, so you do. What happens? The GM then has to increase the power/difficulty of the opposition to match! The player can't win in a straight numbers game like that.
Which is not to say that the whole thing has to be worth it, from the player's point of view. If having a personal connection that only creates problems, and has no upside, that won't work. Having a personal connection that creates problems, but has an upside of really cool roleplaying moments of the type the player wants might be worth it.
For one thing, outside the most basic of combat advantages vs disadvantages, there's no way to make that comparison cleanly and clearly.
For another thing, that's... just not how RPGs work. Let us say the GM offers you an option that is clearly in your favor. Any downside is blatantly and obviously countered by the upside. You would be stupid to take it, so you do. What happens? The GM then has to increase the power/difficulty of the opposition to match! The player can't win in a straight numbers game like that.
Which is not to say that the whole thing has to be worth it, from the player's point of view. If having a personal connection that only creates problems, and has no upside, that won't work. Having a personal connection that creates problems, but has an upside of really cool roleplaying moments of the type the player wants might be worth it.
My problem is that the "upside of really cool roleplaying moments" is a really hard thing to judge and often the DM is being more careful than needed. It centers all around the notion of the player somehow "getting something for free". Heck, this whole sidebar about having a sister that happens to work in the mayor's house is a perfect example. It's not like this is possibly going to result in any sort of massive power gain for the player. Yet, we see all sorts of resistance to the idea because the player is getting something for nothing.
There's game designs that handle this simply - the thing isn't "for free". You stipulate that you have a sister that works in the Mayor's office. When the player wants to use that for their own benefit, they have to pay some resource. When the GM wants to use it against the player, the GM gives the player some resource.
A simple example is Fate Aspects - if you tag them for a bonus, you have to pay a Fate point. If the GM wants to use them against you, they have to pay. It is transactional in that sense, always paid for at time of service.
But honestly, considering this in terms of "power" is silly, as I pointed out - the GM always wins the arms race, if they want to. Thinking of it in terms of power is a shallow view. Thinking about it in terms of capability to be what you want in the narrative is better.
Then, if the player is smart, they win either way - the sister in the Mayor's office becomes both "I'm the person with connections" and "I'm the noble sibling who comes to the rescue", which are both cool things to be.
This is exactly an example of what I posted upthread (originally in reply to @Lanefan) - the reason the players can't have a PC's sister leave the side gate open is not because its unrealistic, or contradicts other setting elements, or even that it creates an "unfair" advantage, but because it disrupts the GM's prep and pacing.
The NPC sister example was not my example, it came up when something different was being discussed. Since I do allow players limited invoke ability at the cost of NPCs pulling back on players sometimes I was able to answer Hussar's 2405 question about how a player might be able to use it & what kind of trouble it might get into here in2412 but haven't been able to shed problems she might introduce to my campaign if I were to allow such a "boring"* NPC. I don't think the person who brought her up is even involved in things at this point so she's an especially bad example for anything in that light.
OK, fair enough. But if you're a GM running a game that depends on that sort of control over prep and pacing, then I think you have to resign yourself to the players not engaging with your setting via deep investment of their PCs. You're deliberately running a game in which the players have to look to you to provide the fiction!
Oh no, you get the wrong impression about setting engagement. Players can & do develop deep investment in their PCs & the world, make a mark on the world & even backfill stories, they just do so collaboratively both with me the GM & the other players at the table through play rather than handing me a "backstory". I gave some examples of how it works both ways at my table in the spoiler here. I provide a lot of the fiction yes, but a lot of that is just guiding what players bring during play & sometimes complicating things. This works great with my regular players & players who eventually get up to speed but has the appearance of playing favorites until they do. When dndbeyond made characters portable between campaigns some of the marketing videos mentioned terms like how it allows players to "own their characters" it raised the bar for players resisting it pretty significantly on getting players comfortable because players were being told that they own their character & it's story.
When it comes to cost/benefits of advantages & disadvantages here players give & get what they put into them because an uninvolved reactive character is almost always going to develop less interesting story no matter how I try to drag them into it unless they fill a niche nobody else can conveniently do. I've mostly been trying to use generic examples that don't need too much context but my current game has a great example of this. One of my five players just can not get out of the assassin's creed/morrowwind/etc mindset & regularly invents fanciful stories that tend to get "uhhuh... so anyways" type responses from the other players who just roll their eyes because the stories of their characters are made through deeds at the table, lets call him Bob. In the current campaign several months in
One player started a church with a new faith & has done a great deal to get that rolling, a large part of that was done because the church needs villagers not in danger from monsters & such in the area but there's been other things
A second player started a business but needed to clean up the monster infested roads leading to the area by dealing with root causes for the monsters
A third player is there for beer & pretzels but is ok with the push/pull if a little bland
A fourth player has been doing wizardstuff that would take a bit to explain how it's quite involved in the church & business.
And then there is bob. Almost any complication thrust at him causes anger & frustration so we just quit doing that early on & decided he was a noble with some distant monster infested land but he was a convenient excuse for everyone else to start their goals in the same area. Occasionally he feels important because another player says words like "we're fixing your family's land" but generally he's even less involved than the beer & pretzels third player.
They've killed a dragon(quite a few if you count wyrmlings).... They tracked down the ruins of an ancient civilization & made it safe to recover a "mountain" of mostly copper coins needed for other purposes even though they were worth less than the cost of recovering them from the ruins of a fallen civilization after doing some jobs (mission of the week stuff around holidays) for a trade caravan to work for them now pay later transporting a caravan of mostly copper coins across a huge distance out to the wastelands They subdued a tuckers kobolds type problem to open a tunnel through a mountain. They freed some bankers who were captured by bandits by dealing with a bandit problem in a neighboring kingdom because they needed educated accountant types to count & manage a mountain of copper so the local barter economy would break with the creation of an economy while temporarily clearing up a severe coin shortage that was causing "problems" with the second player's business since back before they tracked down the ancient city. Oh yea, they met & interacted with a lot of NPCs but social interactuon isn't exactly a thing d&d is super well known for calling a strength so this actually improves the NPCs, some of those I created & some they created but many NPCs that one or more of the PCs themselves had already known or interacted with in the past before any of the PCs met each other. Most of the players & their PCs are phenomenally invested by any standard & I left out a lot of the last year involving planar travel demons & magic of the old empire.
Bob is there week after week telling fanciful stories everyone shrugs at, aside from being an extra PC his biggest contribution to all of that was gm: "bob this monster infested wasteland of yours has a lot of economic problems on account of being a monster infested wasteland, there's not really a shop like that in the village but..">Bob:"no it doesn't, it has a huge economy where people sell monster parts not found anywhere else in the world it has a few shops that sell magic weapons">Player2:"Um... That gives me an idea of how we could kickstart this crummy town from a book I read involving a huge pile of copper coins & link it to my roads problem". There have been a couple times where someone made an effort to involve his character, but it's almost always better to work around him because he offers a high cost to everyone's story & returns negative benefits to them whenever efforts are made. He wants a hard concrete ever growing PC story with exclusive authorship & no concern for anything not a fractalized background that makes the quantum ogre look positively encased in carbonite.
*In the fate rules the word "boring" comes up a lot, pretty much everything is an aspect there so this should decently convey what meaning for "boring" is being used
a lot of character creation focuses on coming up with aspects—some are called high concepts, some are called troubles, but they basically all work the same way. aspects are one of the most important parts of your character, since they define who she is, and they provide ways for you to generate fate points and to spend those fate points on bonuses. if you have time, you really might want to read the whole chapter we have dedicated to aspects before you go through the process of character creation.in case you’re pressed for time, here are some guidelines for choosing aspects.
aspects which don’t help you tell a good story (by giving you success when you need it and by drawing you into danger and action when the story needs it) aren’t doing their job. the aspects which push you into conflict—and help you excel once you’re there—will be among your best and most-used. aspects need to be both useful and dangerous—allowing you to help shape the story and generating lots of fate points—and they should never be boring. the best aspect suggests both ways to use it and ways it can complicate your situation. aspects that cannot be used for either of those are likely to be dull indeed.
Bottom line: if you want to maximize the power of your aspects, maximize their interest.
When you’re told you need to come up with an aspect, you might experience brain freeze. if you feel stumped for decent ideas for aspects, there’s a big section focusing on several methods for coming up with good aspect ideas in Aspects and Fate Points.
if your character doesn’t have many connections to the other characters, talk with the group about aspects that might tie your character in with theirs. this is the explicit purpose of phases two and three—but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it elsewhere as well.
If you ultimately can’t break the block by any means, don’t force it—leave it completely blank. you can always come back and fill out that aspect later, or let it develop during play—as with the Quick character creation rules.
ultimately, it’s much better to leave an aspect slot blank than to pick one that isn’t inspiring and evocative to play. if you’re picking aspects you’re not invested in, they’ll end up being noticeable drags on your fun.
In Fate a lot of this would be handled with fate points but we never really thought of good way to graft such a thing on that wouldn't be wrecked by bob trying to spend his fate points alongside his stories. Fate very much requires a level of complete player buy in that makes the early d&d holy trinity of fighter/rogueorthief/cleric look like a mere suggestion or it falls apart.
But I'll be just a little bit more pointed: I think to a large extent you get what you play for. I think a GM who both (i) wants to assert sole, or overwhelming, control over the fiction (including pacing, what events occur when and which NPC is present in them, etc) and (ii) wants the players to connect their PCs more to the gameworld, may be setting themself up for disappointment.
if every option in "the adventure" funnels the players to B, then getting to B is not a challenge. And so having a sister open the door to B; or having the GM just drop B into play using their (extensive) power to manage the background and frame scenes; is not circumventing any challenge.
It feels like the journey is a big part of a lot of classic modules and classic adventure stories?
Is dropping the players right off at the Tomb of Annihilation, or Frodo and Sam right at Mt. Doom missing a lot? Why can't finding the information about the Dragon (or whatever it was) be an important part of the quest (albeit, probably not as important or long as going to and through Mordor)?
I can't comment on Tomb of Annihilation. But in the case of LotR not every option funnels the protagonists to Mordor. The Hobbits went to Bree, and then to Rivendell, and (initially) hoped to stop there. The Fellowship went to Lothlorien by chance (they were forced into Moria, and then Gandalf's death which resulted, in part, from Pippin's foolishness, left Aragorn in charge; he led them to Lorien). Frodo tried to head off without Sam. Aragorn found himself obliged to travel the Paths of the Dead. Etc.
I have a lot of travel in my RPGing - in Classic Traveller the PCs travel from world to world; in Prince Valiant, having started in Britain, the PCs are now in Cyprus; in Torchbearer, the first session started at the entrance to the "dungeon" and the second session finished in Stoink, to which the PCs journeyed after the dungeon had got the better of them; my PC in the Burning Wheel game I posted about upthread has travelled the Ulek-Pomarj border; in my Cortex+ LotR game the PCs travelled to Angmar, and then to Ost-in-Edhil and entered Moria; etc.
In the context of this discussion, about players embedding their PCs in the gameworld, and declaring actions based around their friends and family, there are a host of relevant questions: if a player declares I want to meet Gandalf at the Prancing Pony", how is that resolved? How do we resolve the journey? Assuming that the PCs get there, how do we know if Gandalf is there? And if he is, how do we know if he's able to provide the PCs with any advice or assistance?
D&D has one way of resolving these questions: we resolve the travel via map-and-key plus wilderness encounter charts; the GM decides if Gandalf is there, perhaps informed by a random chart; the GM decides what help Gandalf might be able to offer.
If someone is using those methods, and finding that they don't prompt players to embed their PCs into the fiction, maybe they might want to consider different ones? 25 years ago alternatives might have been radical; now they're well-known.
And suppose the GM decides that Gandalf isn't there - the PCs will have to go and find Radagast at Rhosgobel. Is the journey from Bree across the mountains to Southern Mirkwood guaranteed to provide a more interesting play experience than whatever might have happened had the PCs encountered Gandalf?
If the answer is Well, I've prepared the Radagast element of the adventure, so it's that or nothing!" again I say Fair enough, but you will get what you play for.
So how do we make settings thicker? There are a wide range of options - @Hussar already mentioned spending Action points; my overall preference is to have it check-based (Streetwise, Circles, Resources, etc) - but in D&D the default is freeform roleplay and negotiation between players and GM. And my view remains that there is no particular reason why the default answer should be No.
