D&D General No Fixed Location -- dynamically rearranging items, monsters, and other game elements in the interests of storytelling

[iserith]

Just to be testy (), that's not a prep issue, but more in the toolbox of in-play DM altering of things. It's a convenient tool, to be sure, but not one of the prepped details hard coded to be overcome by PC actions that's been discussed.

To me, that says that prep isn't everything, and it's a spectrum, and no-one's actually at either of the ends as imagined.

What is being altered in play in the manner that is being advocated in this thread? Everything I stated above is the design and prep of the game. I designed and prepared that structure and the fictional conceits that underpinned it. During play, it was just a matter of letting the PCs act in that sandbox with their understanding of the structure and their chosen goal: defeat the dungeon.

The fun thing about most of those plot based adventures you reference is that they're really a bunch of linked locations, for the most part. I mean, I don't have a huge experience recently due to be penchant for homebrew, but I did run SKT and played in CoS, both of which had excellent location-based portions linked through Plot(tm)!

I address this a ways upthread. Plot-based games have to have locations. But location-based games don't have to have plot. My next campaign is a hexcrawl with a megadungeon at the center and three towns. There will be no plot. Players will do as they please session to session. They don't have to follow a storyline.

Also, if I may, but my impression is that you're a pretty gosh-darned good DM. You also put a lot of work into your games, and the combination of the two is really great. I'd be careful taking the wonderful reception you get from your games as a general trend towards your recent preferences in game design. I have a feeling that you might be able to find a way to make F.A.T.A.L. an enjoyable experience and that it's actually you, rather than a design principle, that's the draw. I say that because I'd like to think I'm not a slouch at these things, and my players vastly prefer games with plot, even though I'm less of a fan. Also, there's that whole Critical Role thingy that seems hella popular.

Thanks for the kind words. I have the benefit of working with some other DMs who are also presenting, some for the first time, things like hex crawls and dungeon delves, having run chiefly plot-based scenarios for years. They are seeing the same response that I'm seeing and I've got decades of experience on them in the chair. So, while obviously what I'm seeing is anecdotal, there's a demand for this regardless of DM (or so it seems).

That said, as I mentioned above, I'm not even advocating for one single thing, just that people try to do things they don't normally do. I do the whole spectrum of games, not just the one. It keeps you on your toes.

 

[Imaculata]

As a side note, it would be interesting for WotC to explore this topic, and the idea of a sandbox campaign, in a future book. It seems they always release linear adventure modules, and never teach the players about alternatives. Perhaps this is with the idea in mind that even DM's running a sandbox campaign could incorporate a linear adventure anywhere into their own campaign. But they never really teach the players about all the other DM techniques and alternatives in running a campaign. It is unlikely they will do this, but I would welcome it.

It would also be interesting to explore various narrative techniques that the DM can use in a future book. How to run a campaign where the plot is not tied to any specific location, and instead is a series of events (as Iserith calls them) that the DM can drop in at any point, that progress the main plot over time. And an example of a sandbox campaign that is ready to run would be very welcome.

 

[TheSword]

As a side note, it would be interesting for WotC to explore this topic, and the idea of a sandbox campaign, in a future book. It seems they always release linear adventure modules, and never teach the players about alternatives. Perhaps this is with the idea in mind that even DM's running a sandbox campaign could incorporate a linear adventure anywhere into their own campaign. But they never really teach the players about all the other DM techniques and alternatives in running a campaign. It is unlikely they will do this, but I would welcome it.

It would also be interesting to explore various narrative techniques that the DM can use in a future book. How to run a campaign where the plot is not tied to any specific location, and instead is a series of events (as Iserith calls them) that the DM can drop in at any point, that progress the main plot over time. And an example of a sandbox campaign that is ready to run would be very welcome.

Curse of Strahd is a good example of a Sandbox campaign written well. It features individual locations that tie to an overarching story but without being locked in time.

Each location has a set of triggering actions that create a sense of interactions and time passing but these can be combined in multiple ways.

Probably the best/funnest published campaign I’ve ever run.

Only downside is that by the time the PCs have explored Barovia the castle/Strahd itself is a bit easy. In hindsight I’d have made the castle far more fiendish.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As a side note, it would be interesting for WotC to explore this topic, and the idea of a sandbox campaign, in a future book.

Dragon of Icespire Peak and it's on-line only sequels from the Essentials Kit form a sandbox campaign, especially if combined with Lost Mines.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yes, and that’s what I mean here: the GM is moving stuff around behind the scenes, making NPCs act in ways that aren’t necessarily mentioned in the adventure text.

You are talking about two different things here.

1) Moving encounters to advance the plot. This is Schrodinger's Owlbear. So long as the players don't observe the DM doing it it's fine, but if the players have even the slightest hint that it is happening the universe implodes. To reduce the chance of universal implosion it is best kept to a minimum.

2) NPCs reacting to PC actions. There is no way any "adventure text" can anticipate everything the players might do and describe how NPCs react. The DM needs to roleplay NPC reactions on the fly, this is just normal DMing.

 

[Maxperson]

You make it sound like I'm asking a stupid question but I don't think I am. We are talking about players who apparently get mad if the treasure chest is in the first room instead of the second room (because the book said it was the second room), but are OK if the Lich King makes an alliance with the Elf Queen (even though the book doesn't say anything about that) (and of course assuming there's a valid reason for the chest to be in the other room, and a valid reason for the alliance).

It seems to me the first "tampering" is vastly inconsequential (except for saving the players from wasting time searching more rooms) while the second can totally change the course of the campaign.

Heh. I give up, I don't understand.

For me it's about a dynamic world, not one that is static and just sits there. If a powerful group has come into the premade scenario and is demolishing both the Lich Kings undead forces and the Elf Queens loyal subjects, I can see them putting aside their animosity to take care of the new threat. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.

Intelligent beings in a premade adventure will have thoughts and desires based on who and what they are. A DM should be thinking about those things and how what is happening in the adventure will be responded to by the NPCs.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The game straight up tells us what the goal is, regardless of approach: everyone having fun and creating an exciting, memorable story by playing. A so-called "neutral DM" who isn't achieving that is failing and, I would hope, not on purpose.

Yet, I've seen plenty of examples on these boards of people advocating for exactly that. That player frustration is an expected part of the game, and is even crucial to enjoyment. And while I think that this is more about challenge and overcoming adversity within the game, I don't know if I equate that with frustration. To me, actual frustration is indicative of someone not enjoying the game.

I think @hawkeyefan was mostly talking about the fact that, given a situation where the adventure is at an impasse somehow, if the choices are "stay neutral, let the PCs get out of it even if it means an hour of painfully boring and frustrating play" and "fudge a thing or two, get back to exciting things in 5 minutes", going with the 5-minutes-to-fun-land option isn't a bad choice. Saying "well you shouldn't have ended up in this hole in the first place", or "it's the fault of the badly designed module, you should have spotted that early on" isn't very helpful IMHO.

Yes, this is very much what I meant.

Yes, I would try to foresee elements of the game that may be obstacles and then take steps to avoid them. But I find that the nature of the game can lend itself to complications that can't really be foreseen, and aren't really one party's fault. The game is a conversation, and sometimes two parties in a conversation are not connecting in the way that they mean to. Yes, this can be indicative of a preexisting problem of some kind, but I think it can also just be something that happens in the course of play.

I think it is more helpful to know where the source of the problem is so one can go there to fix it permanently. I don't think treating symptoms is a good long-term strategy as it usually just results in a kludgy approach. Going straight to the cause is best in my view.

Possibly, yes. There could be some kind of issue leading to the problem, and if identified, perhaps it can be corrected. Other times, it may just be that the DM and players aren't on the same page for some reason. In that sense, there isn't always some cause that exists prior.

Communication isn't perfect, and the game is a conversation.....so I think that by its very nature, sometimes there are going to be bugs. When those bugs somehow result in a poor experience at the table, I try to recognize and adjust to get things back on track.

To run with your metaphor, when I see my kid and he has snot running down his face, yes I want to get him to the doctor and find out if it's something serious.....but step one is that I'm gonna wipe his nose.

 

[iserith]

Yet, I've seen plenty of examples on these boards of people advocating for exactly that. That player frustration is an expected part of the game, and is even crucial to enjoyment. And while I think that this is more about challenge and overcoming adversity within the game, I don't know if I equate that with frustration. To me, actual frustration is indicative of someone not enjoying the game.

Agreed.

Possibly, yes. There could be some kind of issue leading to the problem, and if identified, perhaps it can be corrected. Other times, it may just be that the DM and players aren't on the same page for some reason. In that sense, there isn't always some cause that exists prior.

Communication isn't perfect, and the game is a conversation.....so I think that by its very nature, sometimes there are going to be bugs. When those bugs somehow result in a poor experience at the table, I try to recognize and adjust to get things back on track.

To run with your metaphor, when I see my kid and he has snot running down his face, yes I want to get him to the doctor and find out if it's something serious.....but step one is that I'm gonna wipe his nose.

The question then becomes: Do I quietly rearrange items, monsters, and other game elements behind the scenes or do I say that I messed up and figure out a way forward with the players? As I stated above, I would do the latter and have. That kind of transparency in my experience works for all players, including the ones that would have a real problem with the DM shifting things around to, say, reduce difficulty or keep the players on the plot.

 

[lordabdul]

You are talking about two different things here.

1) Moving encounters to advance the plot. [...]

2) NPCs reacting to PC actions. [...]

It's not so different. Encounters are made of NPCs. We established that NPCs can (and should!) react to what's going on in the world. Therefore encounters can move. Same thing for objects: NPCs can move them. You can justify a lot of stuff in category 1 by using category 2. It's all completely irrelevant because what matters is whether the players' immersion, agency, and fun are still high, and I think there's more than one way to get there.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This is true.

All of these can happen now and then, but IME (both as DM and player!) what far more frequently happens is that while the clues have been presented reasonably well the players have either wildly misinterpreted something or latched on to a red herring, and run themselves into a dead end.

Yes, this kind of thing happens all the time. The players may pick up on the wrong thing and then latch on to it. What I wonder is if the clues have actually been presented reasonably well.....that's hard to say.

As a DM, we know the big picture, so it may seem painfully obvious to us how the clue points toward some logical next step. But the players have a small sliver of the picture, and that clue may not mean jack to them. Or maybe the way I portrayed it as DM made one thing look important, and another look less important.

I don't want to blame the players when this happens. Instead, what I want to do is not have them spend the entire session chasing some dead end because it sounds like a waste of time. So I adjust, and present information again in another way, or I have something else come up that helps move things along.

Again, this is about making them succeed where they could fail. It's about recognizing that communication is imperfect, and not "punishing" players for that.

This brings up another situation that I've used numerous times in the past: they'll go out on an adventure with one goal in mind but there's in fact another goal they don't and can't know about until (unless!) they find it.

An example: I converted and ran the 4e adventure Marauders of the Dune Sea, using a backstory where one group of Hobgoblins talks the party into a mission: go into the endless sandstorm to find out and maybe stop whatever an enemy group of Hobgoblins is doing in there. (all the enemy group was doing in there was dying, but nobody knew that)

Unknown to anyone, the real goal of the adventure was to find and recover an artifact I'd placed in there which everyone in the desert - including both sides in the Hob war - was thus-far-unsuccessfully looking for. This was the lead-in to what turned out to be a six-adventure arc that, while not perfect, worked out more or less OK.

Sure, this is all perfectly fine. My only addition would be to say it's also fine if the shift in goals occurred to the DM during play rather than just having planned it beforehand.

In this case, "that's what the character would do..." is the perfect defense.

Doesn't sound like much of an adventurer.

"Indifferent Jones and the Temple of Doom" doesn't seem like it'd be a fun movie to watch.

I have to admit I don't find either "plot-based" or "event-based" to fit the games I run. "Goal-based" seems more apt; the players/PCs choose goals and pursue them. It isn't wildly dissimilar from your AP/sandbox hybrid (though I don't always have all the follow-on things worked out).

That's how I described my game very early in the thread. It's goal based. There are multiple goals possible, based on PC desires and those of their group, and also based on elements I've introduced. They kind of pursue anything they want at any point.

But typically, and this is just as true of sandbox games, goals involve some kind of sequence of events that need to happen to be achieved. There may be slightly different sequences that can be found, but there's still some kind of steps involved. And this is something that strong sandbox proponents seem to not want to say because they consider it too railroady. Which I don't really get, but I think that's what happens a lot.

Everyone having fun all the time? Call me cynical, but that sounds a bit pie-in-the-sky from here.

It should still be a goal that is always forefront, though. That should always be what you're trying to do, even though you won't always succeed.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Agreed.

The question then becomes: Do I quietly rearrange items, monsters, and other game elements behind the scenes or do I say that I messed up and figure out a way forward with the players? As I stated above, I would do the latter and have. That kind of transparency in my experience works for all players, including the ones that would have a real problem with the DM shifting things around to, say, reduce difficulty or keep the players on the plot.

Yes, but as I said, sometimes due to the nature of communication, no one is at fault.

What blame is there for the DM to take when it's just a matter of a communication breakdown? It could just as easily be on the part of the players, or more likely, a little of column A and a little of column B.

Trust me, I have no problem with transparency. If I've messed up, I have no problem owning up to it and discussing it with my players. I also don't mind if I have to do the occasional retcon. Last night, I described something to my players and left out a pretty important detail that I meant to include. A few minutes later, when I realized my error, I corrected it, and then we moved on. Luckily, the lack of that detail hadn't really impacted the course they took. If it had, I would have allowed for them to revise their actions if they wanted.

That's not the kind of thing I am talking about though.

 

[iserith]

Yes, but as I said, sometimes due to the nature of communication, no one is at fault.

What blame is there for the DM to take when it's just a matter of a communication breakdown? It could just as easily be on the part of the players, or more likely, a little of column A and a little of column B.

I will always shoulder the blame as DM. Firstly because I'm doing most of the communicating by the very nature of the game and also because I'm the only person I can control. This has the side effect of setting an example for the players to follow and in my experience they do not disappoint.

 

[Fenris-77]

Players miss prepped material all the time, for a hundred different reasons. Sometimes I'm to blame, sometimes its the players. What happens after that depends entirely on the type of campaign, the specific players, the nature of the mistake or miscommunication, and the DM's style.

We seem to have ended up moving back through a lot of the same arguments form earlier in the thread. I see one particular observation a lot from the "I never move things crowd" - that the players wouldn't like it, or that it would ruin their immersion. That's fair, more than fair, however it also assumes that the moving is being done in a way that would be noticeable, to any way, on the player side of the screen. That isn't actually a reason contra, since it's not even remotely a given that players will, or even can notice. To assume otherwise is to imply that the DM doing the moving is incompetent, which doesn't seem like a friendly thing to assume.

Being transparent about actual mistakes isn't the issue at hand though. In those cases I think we can all agree that transparency is the best option.

 

[Prakriti]

As a side note, it would be interesting for WotC to explore this topic, and the idea of a sandbox campaign, in a future book. It seems they always release linear adventure modules, and never teach the players about alternatives.

From what I understand, Tomb of Annihilation is a hexcrawl and maybe a sandbox as well.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Everyone having fun all the time? Call me cynical, but that sounds a bit pie-in-the-sky from here.

That, and some frustration and delay can make a subsequent breakthrough all the more satisfying and absolutely memorable. Example: a party in which I was a player once got to a door in a dungeon that for whatever now-forgotten reason it was vital that we get through. The only way - the only way, and believe me we tried everything! - we could open this door was to solve the riddle written upon it. (think of the Fellowship at the door to Moria)

Two entire sessions, plus some mid-week discussions, went by and we couldn't solve this bloody riddle.

Finally, in the third session my PC (as in, me) tried what seemed like a too-simple answer and >poof< the door vanished to a roaring cheer around the table.

I don't remember anything else about that dungeon or even that campaign, but I do remember that damn door both for the frustration of getting through it and the breakthrough when we finally did.

How certain are you that the too-simple answer you came up with was the predetermined answer? Is it possible that after three sessions the DM simply said to himself, "These guys have been trying to solve this for forever and I really want them to see what's past that door. Lanefan's answer works. I'm going to let them have this one..."? How would you honestly ever know (unless it was a module and you read it afterwards)?

Personally, I don't generally help out my players as discussed in this thread unless they've gone past what I think of as the 'tipping point', because I think that you're right that satisfaction can arise from frustration. However, when they are frustrated and out of ideas, but aren't at the breaking point of giving up either, I'm liable to find a way to throw them a hint or such to help break the deadlock.

 

[iserith]

Players miss prepped material all the time, for a hundred different reasons. Sometimes I'm to blame, sometimes its the players. What happens after that depends entirely on the type of campaign, the specific players, the nature of the mistake or miscommunication, and the DM's style.

We seem to have ended up moving back through a lot of the same arguments form earlier in the thread. I see one particular observation a lot from the "I never move things crowd" - that the players wouldn't like it, or that it would ruin their immersion. That's fair, more than fair, however it also assumes that the moving is being done in a way that would be noticeable, to any way, on the player side of the screen. That isn't actually a reason contra, since it's not even remotely a given that players will, or even can notice. To assume otherwise is to imply that the DM doing the moving is incompetent, which doesn't seem like a friendly thing to assume.

Being transparent about actual mistakes isn't the issue at hand though. In those cases I think we can all agree that transparency is the best option.

This is sort of like saying it's not cheating if you don't get caught. At a table where the players would prefer the DM not to move stuff around at all, the DM is well-advised not to do it at all, no matter how good the DM may be at hiding what he or she is doing. That is particularly true if the DM agreed to adhere to this preference.

 

[Xetheral]

Why are we assuming an episodic game or that the party returns to a safe point at the end of each session? That's not a given. And even if we do assume that, why are we further assuming that the adventure location can be "completed" in that session? Lots to unwind here about these assumptions.

Do you generally run plot-based games? I'm sensing some disconnect here.

I'm not assuming anything. One of my examples of non-plot-related DM changes that can be pertinent in a location-based game simply happens to apply only to the subset of location-based games where session pacing is important. I used the further example of episodic location-based games as an illustration of a type of location-based game where pacing matters. I am well aware that location-based games can be episodic or non-episodic, and that session pacing can be important or unimportant.

As for my games, I run sandbox games that are not location-based. I fill my sandboxes with conflicts, most of which aren't tied to specific locations. Unlike the storyline in an event-based game, however, the conflicts in my games do not have pre-set plot arcs, and I have no agenda regarding how they will progress. Usually the PCs end up involved in multiple such conflicts at the same time, and it's up to them to allocate their characters' time and resources amongst competing, self-selected priorities.

On my end I thoroughly blend pre-prepared content with improvisation, and will freely change any and all material up until the moment it enters play. When deciding what content to include I emphasize verisimilitude, reinforcing player agency, and (above all) player enjoyment. Common changes I make include: (1) adjusting encounter difficulty on the fly to match telegraphed difficulty (particularly if it's an improvised encounter), (2) adjusting the sizes of locations/number of encounters to control session pacing, (3) delay or move up interruptions to the PC's current activity to match player moods and keep engagement high, (4) revising later material to tie back to open-ended material that I'd included earlier.

 

[prabe]

This is sort of like saying it's not cheating if you don't get caught. At a table where the players would prefer the DM not to move stuff around at all, the DM is well-advised not to do it at all, no matter how good the DM may be at hiding what he or she is doing. That is particularly true if the DM agreed to adhere to this preference.

If the DM says, "I'm not moving things around," then moves things around, that's at least a symptom of bad DMing. I suspect it's pretty easy to tell, playing at a table, whether a DM's style meshes with yours, on pretty much any axis of measure. Maybe you're far more interested in achieving goals and the DM is more interested in crawls of some sort (dungeon/hex) and uninterested in any sort of narrative momentum. Or, maybe you're more interested in poking around and seeing what stuff you can find and the DM is more interested in goals and stories and other such pointless fluff.

I haven't made it explicitly clear to the players in my campaigns, but I rearrange things and I occasionally shift numbers around. I've also screwed things up and handled things badly, and I've apologized to the players afterward.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Players miss prepped material all the time, for a hundred different reasons. Sometimes I'm to blame, sometimes its the players. What happens after that depends entirely on the type of campaign, the specific players, the nature of the mistake or miscommunication, and the DM's style.

We seem to have ended up moving back through a lot of the same arguments form earlier in the thread. I see one particular observation a lot from the "I never move things crowd" - that the players wouldn't like it, or that it would ruin their immersion. That's fair, more than fair, however it also assumes that the moving is being done in a way that would be noticeable, to any way, on the player side of the screen. That isn't actually a reason contra, since it's not even remotely a given that players will, or even can notice. To assume otherwise is to imply that the DM doing the moving is incompetent, which doesn't seem like a friendly thing to assume.

Being transparent about actual mistakes isn't the issue at hand though. In those cases I think we can all agree that transparency is the best option.

I think it's a matter of player and DM expectation. If I was to play a game with Lanefan, let's say, I'd be clear about how I approach the game, and make sure everyone was cool with that. If not, then we'd find mutual ground of some sort and then proceed accordingly.

So I think that if you've committed to running one way, then any breach of that process has to be well justified, or else it's cause for concern.

I forget whose example it was of the unpassable door.....for me, I'd simply say "you try for some time, but there's no way you can open this door" and then have them move on, with no expenditure of resources. Other DMs may sit and wait through every option the players may come up with to try and bypass the door, and only move along once they've exhausted all options and give up, noting what resources they expended on the attempt to open the door. Other DMs may decide "screw it, Open Door actually works, who cares what the module says", and tell them what happens as the door creak open.

I don't think there's any problem with any approach above, but if the players are expecting one approach, and you use another, then this could cause issues.

Personally, I'd likely smash my head into the table watching them try to open a door and continually fail, and would have the door open because why the hell is the door there anyway?!?! I'd have it open, and send them through and adjust everything on the fly, making things up as needed.

 

[Fenris-77]

This is sort of like saying it's not cheating if you don't get caught. At a table where the players would prefer the DM not to move stuff around at all, the DM is well-advised not to do it at all, no matter how good the DM may be at hiding what he or she is doing. That is particularly true if the DM agreed to adhere to this preference.

Ahh, there's that word again - cheating. I love loaded words, they do a marvelous job showing a position's true colors. Here's the deal, the players can prefer whatever they want, and they have every right to be upset if they realize that things are being moved around - deus ex machina sucks. What players don't get to prefer is how I prep and run a campaign. In that case they might prefer to run their own campaign. If I reorganize a bunch of my stuff after an unexpected hard right by the players that's no one's business but mine.

The extent to which I rearrange things, and what things I might rearrange are precisely where the campaign contract and player expectations come in. In a game more like the one iserith wants, I wouldn't move encounters no matter what the PCs do. What I might do is either deploy a floating NPC I had prepped for just that situations, or create that NPC on the fly to do the same job. Or, if it didn't matter much, I might not move anything. In a different kind of game, I might just move a couple of encounters to the new location if it made sense, or maybe not move anything and let the side game play out. It's all about consistency in the fiction and what makes the most sense in the moment.