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

[Don Durito]

Maybe because I still don't understand the point of your example.

I don't understand what reason or motivation I would have to secretly move the location of a room or treasure room in the middle of an active session.

That's literally altering game reality on my players in the middle of a game.

I don't know...but let's see.

First, a treasure room is hard to move around. Usually, it can only be in one place because the design of a building or the like is going to put it in the most secure place - so usually it's unusual that you can move it.

But let's say that for some reason it occurs to you that the PCs are in a perfectly logical place where you could move the treasure room to. Perhaps you have the bad guys treasure room in one place and their empty dungeon cell in another, and both are in similarly secure locations, (Maybe even symetrically opposite positions). It's getting late after a session with several difficult combats and you know you have to end the session.
You realise that you could have the session end with the discovery of an empty dungeon cell - or you could end the session with the discovery of the treasure room. "What did we find? Is there any magic loot?"
"Find out next week."

Wouldn't the latter make for a better end to the session?

Personally I tend to allow myself flexibility by building in redundancy to move certain things around, if I haven't built in that redundancy than I'm much less likely to do it. I move things that have been carefully designed to be moved without messing with the integrity of the world. I don't really see it as being all that different to random encounters. If 1d4 skeletons can appear randomly, why can't a room with 1d4 skeletons be swapped in for any one of 4 empty rooms in a dungeon?

 

[Monayuris]

I don't understand the use case. Would you provide a reason or an example why one would change the location of a treasure room in the middle of the session?

For the same reason you changed it on Friday before the session...

Talking past the example isn't going to help your case.

I don't know how to respond. I asked for clarification of your example and haven't received any clear clarification

Based on the nature of the example I can only answer with that changing the location of a treasure room in the middle of an adventure is changing the environment on the players.

It doesn't matter if they never find out, it is playing a shell game with my players and I respect them more than that.

 

[Charlaquin]

I may have missed a segment of the thread, so forgive me if my post was incoherent in the context of what you were talking about. I was discussing the loss of resources as a penalty, even in cases where success is a predetermined outcome. The efficiency of your success is still a factor which may yet influence the adventure.

Ahh, ok. Perhaps I was being too vague. Let me be more specific. In a scenario I'm currently working on, the players are looking for a character who has been abducted. I have placed three clues that point to the abductee's location: a trail of beads from the abductee's necklace, some witnesses to the abduction, and the city guard who have eyes on the location the abductee was taken to. There are also internal clues pointing between these three fixed elements. But, I recognize that there is every possibility my players will still get stuck, so I have a proactive clue: the gang who abducted the character is running counter-intelligence, and as the PCs ask questions about the abduction, there is an increasing chance that the gang will catch onto them and send a response team to coerce the PCs into stopping asking questions. This response team is deliberately an easy encounter, and I have it noted that the thugs will retreat to the location where they are keeping the abductee if it looks like the PCs are going to kill them. This way, the longer my players wander about, the more likely they are for this proactive clue to come to them. However, this proactive element will be a greater drain on the players' resources than simply following the fixed clues would be, because they have to fight a response team for it.

 

[generic]

Ahh, ok. Perhaps I was being too vague. Let me be more specific. In a scenario I'm currently working on, the players are looking for a character who has been abducted. I have placed three clues that point to the abductee's location: a trail of beads from the abductee's necklace, some witnesses to the abduction, and the city guard who have eyes on the location the abductee was taken to. There are also internal clues pointing between these three fixed elements. But, I recognize that there is every possibility my players will still get stuck, so I have a proactive clue: the gang who abducted the character is running counter-intelligence, and as the PCs ask questions about the abduction, there is an increasing chance that the gang will catch onto them and send a response team to coerce the PCs into stopping asking questions. This response team is deliberately an easy encounter, and I have it noted that the thugs will retreat to the location where they are keeping the abductee if it looks like the PCs are going to kill them. This way, the longer my players wander about, the more likely they are for this proactive clue to come to them. However, this proactive element will be a greater drain on the players' resources than simply following the fixed clues would be, because they have to fight a response team for it.

That makes a lot of sense in the context of a plot-driven game, so, yeah, I understand it better now, thanks.

 

[Charlaquin]

That makes a lot of sense in the context of a plot-driven game, so, yeah, I understand it better now, thanks.

For sure. And for the record, I'm one of those folks who think 5e does location-based games better than plot-based ones. But I'm preparing to run a more plot-based game next because our current campaign has been heavily location-based and I can tell my players are getting anxious for something a bit more plot-driven.

 

[Seramus]

I don't know how to respond. I asked for clarification of your example and haven't received any clear clarification

Based on the nature of the example I can only answer with that changing the location of a treasure room in the middle of an adventure is changing the environment on the players.

I understood his clarification, so let me see if I can explain. Let's say you notice Treasure A (Helm of the Water Lords) is in Room B (The Toilet) and not in Room A (Treasure Chamber of the Water Lords). It doesn't matter if you change it before the game session or in the middle of the session, provided the players have never been to Room A yet.

 

[Todd Roybark]

For sure. And for the record, I'm one of those folks who think 5e does location-based games better than plot-based ones.

Why is this? A plot is not rules dependent, not solely at least.

Add plot to the original Chainmail supplement of Fantasy Wargaming and D&D and RPGs are born.

I remember the plots of games I played in decades ago, not the mechanics though. People 'get' stories...most people.

I honestly feel if WOTC had released 3e style plot/ single location modules to start with, and not sandbox adventuring, this general sense of 5e not doing plot would not be so prevalent.

 

[Seramus]

Why is this? A plot is not rules dependent, not solely at least.

Roots, I suppose. The wargaming origins of D&D run deep into the heart of the earth, where the dark things slumber and reaching roots break their flesh to carry precious hearts blood back up to us. Dreams of violence, grids, tiny strings used for measurement and more flit and caper behind every game design decision.

Sure, D&D could have gone a different direction and ended up like Fate or Chronicles of Darkness. I love both of those games. But it didn't, and it will take a few more editions before we see another shift away from wargaming (if ever).

 

[Todd Roybark]

No offense but I surely hope not! My point being a system does not need hardwired plot rules.

Adding 'plot' to things is something humans have always done. Most likely before Homo Sapiens Sapiens in my opinion.

Smashing things as well .D&D is the sweet spot.

 

[Charlaquin]

Why is this? A plot is not rules dependent, not solely at least.

Add plot to the original Chainmail supplement of Fantasy Wargaming and D&D and RPGs are born.

I remember the plots of games I played in decades ago, not the mechanics though. People 'get' stories...most people.

I honestly feel if WOTC had released 3e style plot/ single location modules to start with, and not sandbox adventuring, this general sense of 5e not doing plot would not be so prevalent.

I mean, D&D in general does location-based better than event-based, 5e isn’t exceptional in that. 4e was probably the edition that did event-based adventures best, but a preference toward location-based adventuring is baked pretty fundamentally into the design of the game, which from its inception was about exploring and looting dungeons, and later hex-based wilderness. Plot was something that got layered on top of that over time, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with running event-based adventures in D&D - heck, I love a good D&D plot - but it’s definitely not what the game was built to do.

Also, note that I’m not saying D&D isn’t good at stories. Location based adventures can have great stories (although they are generally better at environmental storytelling than narrative storytelling). It’s just that D&D’s roots as a lite tabletop skirmish game, its resource management model of challenge, its task resolution system, pretty much all of its core mechanics are about gamifying the exploration and looting of adventure locations.