Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6726571" data-attributes="member: 42582">This post is a response to some posts in <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?469260-How-Do-You-Get-Your-Players-To-Stay-On-An-Adventure-Path" target="_blank">this thread</a>.Clearly D&D can be played as if it were an offline version of World of Warcraft. I'm pretty sure that [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] agrees with that.I think it's also clear that D&D can be played without treating the goal of play being to generate a story (in any interesting or rich sense of "story"). I'm pretty sure that [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] agrees with that too - eg when you look at modules like C1 or G1 the goal of play isn't to generate a story; it's for the players to beat the dungeon.But Howandwhy99's assertions go far beyond this, and that is what makes them false.First, the fact that you can play D&D without aiming at producing a story doesn't mean that before the 1990s no one played the game with the aim of producing a story. I know, myself, that when I was GMing Oriental Adventures in 1986 an important goal of play was creating a story (roughly along the lines of a B samurai movie). And clearly there were FRPGers much before then playing in the same way: Lewis Pulsipher talks a lot about different styles, including story-oriented styles, in articles written for White Dwarf in the late 70s/early 80s. (<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?355801-DMing-philosophy-from-Lewis-Pulsipher" target="_blank">Here</a> is a thread from last year discussing some of Pulsipher's ideas.)Second, the fact that D&D can be played as an offline version of WoW doesn't mean the GM doesn't need to improvise. The need to improvise - by coming up with content, by inventing the backstories and motivations of randomly encountered monster/NPCs, etc is so self-evident it's bizarre that it needs to be pointed out. Celebrim pointed to the example of play in Gygax's DMG. I will point to the example of play in Moldvay Basic, pp B60 and B28:DM (rolling for wandering monsters): "OK. . . . A secret door . . . in the south wall opens, and two hobgoblins stroll in . . . ." . . . Silverleaf steps forward with both hands empty, in a token of friendship, and says "Greetings, noble dwellers of the deep caverns, can we help you?" . . . The DM decides that Silverleaf's open hands and words in the hobgoblins' language are worth +1 when checking for reaction. Unfortunately the DM rolls a 4 (on 2d6) which, even adjusted to 5, is not a good reaction. The hobgoblins draw their weapons, but don not attack. . . . The largest of the hobgoblins shouts, in his language, "Go away! You're not allowed in this room!" "It's okay; Gary sent us," Silverleaf answers. "Huh?" the hobgoblin wittily responds. The DM rolls a new reaction with no adjustments. The roll is a 3; the hobgoblins charge.There are at least three occurrences of GM improvisation in this example of play.(A) The GM decides to allow a +1 bonus to the reaction roll. This is not stated in the rules on p B24 ("The DM can always choose the monster's reaction to fit the dungeon, but if he decides not to do this, a DM may use the reaction table below to determine the monster's reaction"). (B) The GM has to twice interpret the meaning of the phrase "Hostile, possible attack" which is the entry on the reaction table for a result of 3 to 5 - the first time the hobgoblins parley, the second time they attack. (C) When the hobgoblins are parleying but with a hostile orientation, the GM has to make up what they say - in this case, the instruction to the PCs to leave the room.And here is some discussion on content improvisation from Roger Musson's essay on dungeon-building in a relatively early White Dwarf (no 27, 1981):[A]ssuming that you have the corridors and rooms already mapped, there is a very good alternative to improvisation: the Emergency Room Register . . . If players move into an area that you haven't populated, and open a room, select a room randomly from the appropriate list in the Emergency Room Register. . . . It is true that if they had opened the door three down on the right instead of the door they were at, it would have made no different to what they would have found, but as long as they don't know that, it won't hurt them. . . . I used to keep a goodies bag of unlocated odds and ends, which I would dip into in two sorts of circumstances: one, if players were having such a sad time of it that I actually felt sorry for them; two, if a player searched in a hiding place which was so clever that I wished I'd thought of it myself. Should you follow this practice, never admit to ti. Now that I've admitted it, I shall abandon it. In D&D it isn't necessary to play by the book, but it is essential that the players shall always think you are.Basically, Musson is happy with the GM placing a pre-written but as-yet unlocated challenge in front of which ever door the PCs happen to open; but regards GM-improvised rewards as a type of rules-breaking that shouldn't be admitted to. Whether on thinks he is right or wrong in these judgments, it clearly shows that various types of improvisation were taking place before 1990, as well as discussion about the dynamics and proper scope of GM improvisation.Third, even when playing gamist, dungeon crawling D&D, quite often the players have to engage in reasoning which is not "code-breaking" reasoning, but reasoning about the internal logic of the shared fiction - for example, thinking through motivations, relationships etc of the NPCs and monsters.An example of this sort of thing figuring in GMing advice is found in another Roger Musson's essay (White Dwarf no 25, 1981):What are the ingredients that the DM should provide to make his dungeon interesting? If the game is to generate the same interest as a novel, it must have the same ingredients: characters and plot. . . . The characters generate plots, into which the players may step. The characters and plots together generate the contents of the dungeon. . . . The true NPC should be as active as the player-characters. If NPCs are to appear credible, they ought to be doing something . . . And it is when the plans and activities of NPCs and those of the player-characters interact that the best games of D&D result.This is not advocating storytelling as a goal of play. But it is advocating the use of fictional characters, and their motivations and their deeds, as not just a backdrop to play ("This dungeon was built by a crazed wizard") but as the actual subject matter of play - PCs interacting with NPCs, which means both GM and players reasoning about the imagined lives of these imagined beings. That is obviously not code-breaking and not algorithmic.Even if a module has no NPCs of note (as is mostly true of C1) the players might still have to reason about the motivations of NPCs to help beat the module - for instance, in C1 it is helpful for players to get a sense of the logic of the place as a tomb/shrine built by an ancient culture. This sort of reasoning isn't purely code-breaking either.And even if a module has not even a hint of story - eg S2, White Plume Mountain - the players might still have to reason about the fiction in a non-algorithmic/code-breaking way and the GM adjudicate that. In S2 this can include things like ways of flooding the inverted ziggurat room, or surfing doors down the frictionless passage over the super-tetanus pits.These three elements of D&D - it's potential for story, the need for the GM to improvise, the importance of the fiction as an ingredient of play which is not simply algorithmic in its workings - have been there from the beginning. They didn't just spring into existence when White Wolf started publishing in the late 1980s.</blockquote>

Verification