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

[generic]

Does the DMG address the topic of quantum ogres? I don't remember that part.

No, but it does reference running the game your way for your table, ignoring the rules, and even, the dice, when you want to. That's something I wouldn't do, but, it's certainly an explicit playstyle defined in the DMG.

Schrödinger's Ogres can make an appearance if you so wish. Would I include them? Certainly not. Can others? Absolutely yes.

Furthermore, before telling me to quote from the DMG, why don't you find a quote, from the DMG, explicitly discouraging what others have used in their games.

 

[Krachek]

From the player point of view, I only ask a good poker face from the Dm.

 

[Coroc]

Let me start by saying that fudging numbers is against my DM code. I would never do it. However, I find myself engaging in a different kind of fudging more and more: changing item locations (and other elements) mid-adventure.

Maybe it's not fudging. Maybe it has a better name that I'm not aware of. All I know is that it's a great and dynamic way to handle pacing and storytelling within a game. It can be used to reward exploration, advance the plot, or impart information. Let me give a few examples:

Rewarding Exploration
The party is investigating an old house with a lot of fireplaces in it. Only one fireplace has any treasure inside (behind a loose brick). It would suck if the players investigated one fireplace, found nothing, and were discouraged from investigating any others. So instead of putting treasure inside only one of the fireplaces, the treasure now has no fixed location. It's inside whichever fireplace the party happens to investigate first.

Advancing the Plot
The party doesn't know it, but there's an important document inside the dungeon that will turn their world upside down and send them on their next adventure. Since finding the document is imperative to the plot, giving it a fixed location wouldn't necessarily be the best idea -- the party might never find it. So instead, the document is wherever the players happen to look. Do they search an old desk? Papers. Do they find a treasure chest? Papers. Do they search someone's body? Papers. It might seem ham-fisted, but it's better than having to nudge the party in the right direction later.

Imparting Information
The party is struggling through a dungeon that ends with a fireball-casting wizard. You want the players to know what they're up against so they can prepare accordingly (by preparing absorb elements, boosting their Dex saves, acquiring fire resistance, etc.). There's a clue in part of the dungeon -- maybe a large scorch mark that any Arcana-proficient character can recognize as the aftermath of a fireball spell. But if you want the party to have this information, then why leave it up to chance? Drop it into any room that the party happens to visit.

So, what would you call this sort of thing? Is it fudging? And what do you think of it as a DMing tool? Is it wrong? Is it good? Do you ever do it yourself, or is it against your DMing code? Let me know!

1. and 3. is normal playstyle, give hints if you want the party to act in a certain way. The more dangerous an encounter /important for the party things get the more hints you drop. Everything else is bad DM style.
I play open world (kind of) atm. but the party generally follows the targets /tasks. But i did communicate that they might encounter things where running is the best / only solution. But if they encounter such a thing it will be communicated clearly.

2. advancing the plot. You got a plot. Is your plot random? (Rethorical question, of course it is not) So should a key element be accessable only as a random find, eventually with a high DC, is it required to hear the orc prisoner out with a high intimidate, because else everybody, the world and his mother is doomed, because the party missed a clue?
Of course not. Key plot elements are on the body / in the treasure chest of the miniboss or in equivalent not to miss locations. And they happen one way or another. Everything else is bad design and pretty boring.
The way is the goal, how the party manages it to get to the goal is the fun thing.
Extra goodies, like a nice to have magic item, can be strewn all over the place of course.

 

[Charlaquin]

There are times when this tactic is appropriate and times when it can undermine the players’ sense of agency. As with any tool, it’s important to be able to correctly identify when to use it and when not to.

 

[Zaukrie]

Yes, and that is probably the source of the confusion. There is one over-arching meta-rule, which is that the DM can change any rule that they don't like.

I would argue that, once you change the rules, it's no longer the same game. If you change the rules of D&D, to allow meta-gaming or use d30s or whatever, then it isn't cheating for you to play in that way. But you also aren't really playing D&D anymore, except in a very general sense.

When you change a fundamental game mechanic, you can't expect anyone in the community to follow along, until you stop and explain how your game differs from what's in the book. Yes, meta-gaming is cheating, according to the rules in the book. If you change the rules, then meta-gaming may no longer be considered cheating at your table, but your table is no reflection upon D&D as a whole.

It's clear we won't agree on much of anything on this topic, which is cool. Have a good day.

 

[iserith]

How do you avoid them? Is your usual campaign like a kind of "random dungeon"?

My preferred campaign will include a number of location-based adventures (dungeons, hexcrawls) that may or may not be connected in some fashion that the PCs can explore as they will. As opposed to a storyline the PCs are expected to follow to the end with NPCs and clues and the DM's fervent prayers keeping them on track.

What I have found is that this style of campaign seems to work particularly well with D&D 5e. A lot of the character options, exploration, and social interaction rules we don't see a lot of come online and work beautifully ("What? Natural Explorer is actually good?!"). I'm running a scaled-down version of such a campaign as a replayable one shot, for example, and the 30 or so players I've run through it so far frequently comment that things happen in that game that they never see in plot-based games. I think that's a good result.

 

[Prakriti]

I'm running a scaled-down version of such a campaign as a replayable one shot, for example, and the 30 or so players I've run through it so far frequently comment that things happen in that game that they never see in plot-based games. I think that's a good result.

Can you expand a little on what those things are? I'm curious.

For what it's worth, I haven't run a hex-crawl in 5E yet, so I really don't know how they play out.

 

[iserith]

Can you expand a little on what those things are? I'm curious.

For what it's worth, I haven't run a hex-crawl in 5E yet, so I really don't know how they play out.

Some if it definitely requires understanding of the surrounding context which is a lot to get into here. But the easy example is the PHB ranger, even the beast master, is quite good compared to how it's avoided in many campaigns I've run or played in. But add to that a lot of useful tools and languages come into play, as well as equipment that often just goes ignored in the ol' adventurer's packs. In terms of actions you don't see very often, it tends to be situations where what the PCs are doing spins in a particular direction no one anticipated (because there's no plot to follow) and actions one would consider suboptimal in most games suddenly becomes the best choice you can make. (Again, unpacking that would require a lot of detail to explain, but it happens.)

 

[DMP]

If there is a story or plot there to tell then tell it. Playing TOA at the moment and there are so many great locations waiting for a party to stumble on. No harm in moving them in their path

 

[CleverNickName]

The concept of dynamic game elements goes way back...at least as far as The Isle of Dread, where I first saw it. Most of the dungeons were unmapped except for a couple of generic cave lairs, and the DM was encouraged to create better ones on the fly as needed. See what Cook and Moldvay did with Area 5, below. And there were several scripted encounters that were left completely to the whim of the DM (like Area 4.)

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