The thing is, this is not literally true. Most GMs label the rooms on the map, and then have a separate bit of paper on which they right down the details, under the relevant labels. And different GMs write down differing degrees of detail.
Suppose, for instance, that the GM doesn't write down the colour of the roof. What happens if the players ask "What colour is the roof?"? The GM can't answer that it is colourless. S/he has to make something up. And making up that stuff can have downstream consequences. For instance, suppose s/he tells the players that the roof is grey in colour. And suppose the players know that the belly of a lurker above is typically grey in colour. The players can then try to have their PCs trick NPCs into not entering the room - "Don't go in there - look up at the roof - that's actually a lurker above!" Which is to say, the improvised detail might actually matter to gameplay down the line.
It is literally true it must be part of the pattern designed. As I've said before, if something is not part of that game system, the rigorously balanced dynamic design the players are actually supposed to be playing, then it is up to the players. They still need to add material that is actually possible within the design, but color is an easy one. Incorrect suppositions made by the players is part of any game play - i.e. people engaged in code breaking.
Also, none of that is about trying to work out what method the GM used to generate that content. And it in no way depends on whether the GM generated the content randomly or non-randomly. (Except that if the GM has in fact just rolled a lot of bat-like creatures as wandering monsters than the players could form a hypothesis about their being a lair or passage which is, in fact, just wrong.)
Random is not what matters. Repeating a code, a pattern is what matters. Dice rolls in D&D are not in the game to create randomness, but be a representation of actual variance in the design. And you know players are judging content based on encountering prior design. I think you just don't want to admit how RPG face to face and online have been played for decades. "We're pretty far underground in the mad wizards dungeon. And it gets tougher every level. I'm guessing those little guys over there are probably tougher than they look to make it down here."
Yes, the players need to learn that hill giants live in hills, that fire giants live in volcanoes etc. But they don't need to learn whether the GM put these fire giants in this volcano because s/he rolled on the "volcanic regions encounter table" or because s/he thought it was a good idea.
If anyone cared at all why some game constructs are more commonly persisting in some environments than others, than the stocking design matters. This directly feeds to thoughts we can abstract into "Where can my game construct persist?"
No. There is no rule that tells the GM whether or not s/he can place a monster and/or a treasure in this room or in that. (And Gygax expressly encourages the GM to manage treasure placement so as to avoid too much.)
Have you ever looked at the rules for stocking dungeons? Dungeons stock by level. As well as environment. All sorts of stuff is possible for different games. And yes, Gygax had all sorts of bad advice in the DMG.
Neither of those sentences is true. The altar to the alien god is on the "gameboard", but the alien god need not be. The GM is allowed to place the altar, then make up stuff after the event. In the real world, this is actually how a lot of GMs invent a lot of stuff!
The altar needs to be designed to be in the game. So does the alien god, if it in any way affects what that alter can do, why it came about, etc. And pointers to where they constructs are located are in map keys.
Note that in classic D&D there is no "game score" that is role-relative. All players earn XP in exactly the same ways (enemies defeated, loot collected).
This is about artful interpretation, but I agree the early D&D game didn't reward roleplaying so much as killing and gaining treasure. That Fighters and Thieves are rewarded is obvious. Later XP was given for figuring out magic items even casting spells for the M-U. Clerics had it worse off, but can be rewarded for the clerics stuff which slowly came later in AD&D.
It wouldn't be. For instance, that advice would have very little relevance for the players in my game.
It can have relevance for a game in which improvisation takes place, however. For instance, none of that advice becomes invalidated if the GM improvises rules for swimming, for jumping, for using insulated poles to try and disarm electricity traps, etc. Because none of that advice has any bearing on the action resolution mechanics.
Improvisation has no business by any referee in any game. And there are no such things as "resolution mechanics".
What makes you think that things that happen in the length of a campaign in "non-design, improv sessions called games" can't affect anything or everything else that ever happens? I've had experiences that contradict this.
For instance, in an early session of my 4e game the gods gave one of the PCs the task of rebuilding the Rod of Seven Parts. That has affected a great deal else of what has happened in the campaign.
Because there is no game deal to deal with, of course. Taking a piece in chess affects the game. Your example isn't referring to anything occurring in a game. You're referring to the obviously non-game Fiction from "storygames".
I think this claim is in tension with your claim that "it isn't a simulation of everything that anyone could ever think of". I have never had the second law of thermodynamics come up in over 30 years of GMing until one of my players thought of it and brought it into the game!
Damage is hardly new to D&D.
By your measure craps is not a game, given that it has no board or "design". Yet if anything counts as gaming, surely craps does!
Craps is betting based upon players/betters code breaking the odds pattern of a 2d6 die roll. If you can figure out the odds, you can bet with greater regular success (or worse, if your into Forge dogma). It's gaming by deciphering a code like any other game. There's more to Craps, but honestly it looked kind of dull.
In the system I was using, the basic rules are quite clear: the player has to roll a d20, add relevant bonuses, and reach a pre-defined target number. The target number is read from a chart with three columns. The GM has to choose which column (Easy, Medium or Hard) is used. I chose the Hard column, for exactly the same reasons that you say "such a powerful effect" and "such a level of effect". The player then generated bonuses to the roll by making choices which the system permits to be made - in this particular case, spending resources (healing surges/hit points). The system is not broken - where did it break?
The Player improvised a game effect that never referred to the game design. You made a judgement call without reference to anything. You didn't dig down to where get to where the player actually refers to the game design. And then measure. The effects sounds like the consequences were made up by the player too. Remember, to be any kind of game player the player is always referring to the game system or actually engaging with it, not a fiction. The actual game map (board, field of play, pattern, etc.) is the actual design being played - i.e. deciphered.
The player is rolling to find out whether or not the PC succeeds at his attempt to seal the Abyss. At that level of description, it's not different from rolling to see whether or not the PC succeeds in hitting an orc in melee.
I don't know why you say the effect is unbalanced. Where is the lack of balance? I also don't see why you say it is not possible in the game. One of the explicit uses of Arcana skill, per the game rules, is to manipulate magical effects.
As I posted upthread, this is the 4e analogue to creative spellcasting. You may be familiar with the rule in the AD&D books that a Light spell can be cast on a creature's eyes to blind it. Where do you think that rule came from? What would you have done, a GM, the first time a player attempted that? The rulebooks wouldn't have given you an answer.
Where is the balance? The game doesn't sound balanced in the first place. What is the effect? How effective is it compared to other effects in the game? This is balancing a new spell and you put it in 3 boxes - easy, average, hard. What are you juding from? And skills, i.e. "Checks" aren't game mechanics. Game mechanics are mathematical constructs.
And your last question is again, "What happens when a player doesn't something that isn't covered by the rules?" I answered above. The rules in the books are suggestions, not a complete system (which is obvious to good designers who read them). A complete, balanced system - the code - needs to be in place before every campaign a DM runs.
I think the notion of "usurpation" has no work to do here. Suppose it's true that more people enjoy playing my way than your way. And, as seems likely, that many more again prefer playing adventure paths than prefer either your way or my way. That's not a "usurpation" of anything. It's just people engaging in the hobbies they enjoy.
The Forge was one person's prejudicial philosophy used to shame people and rewrite game terminology. It shames anyone and everyone who plays games as activities for Pattern Recognition and Code Breaking and deludes them into thinking they are "shared expression".* Anyone who's played any game from Chess to Magic: The Gathering can gather that.
*Notice you air quoting the basic act of playing a game in this thread title.
Pemerton - another post said:
As I said, I think that sandboxing and problem-solving are basically orthogonal. Most problem-solving in RPGs is either mechanical/technical, or involves interacting with the fiction. I don't see that sandboxing has any special connection to the presence or absence of mechanical/technical problem solving. Nor does it have any special connection to interacting with the fiction, does it? Sandboxing is a method for generating fiction, but not for adjudicating interactions with it when it acts as a constraint within which problems are solved.
IME, sandboxing is old school players try to remember what D&D was before it was taken from them and whitewashed over. The term comes from videogames though, so maybe there is some new cross over? As the game board is the actual mechanical design of the game, moving it inherently requires problem solving/code breaking to play it to objectives well.
Remember, there is no such thing as fiction in a game! It is fiction which is orthogonal to game playing. You're completely backwards on why people play RPGs that those online inherently get, roleplaying has nothing at all to do with stories or character portrayal. CRPGs are really the same dynamic game board patterns only without referees.
