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

[Lanefan]

Turning these arguments around: as a player, I prefer a dungeon master who is flexible and able to improvise to one that is rigid and legalistic. I also like one who can maintain the illusion. I like to have my cake and eat it too.

Fair enough.

The problem I've found is that it's far more difficult to maintain the illusion than many DMs seem to realize, and as soon as the illusion fades the whole game becomes somewhat cheapened.

 

[Charlaquin]

Fair enough.

The problem I've found is that it's far more difficult to maintain the illusion than many DMs seem to realize, and as soon as the illusion fades the whole game becomes somewhat cheapened.

I think this depends on the person. I recently heard a wonderful quote about suspension of disbelief as a state of mind that exists behind a sort of gate, and that everyone needs a different key to open that gate. For some folks, sure, that gate has an incredibly complex lock, and they need all this precision and attention to detail and absolute consistency and whatnot or they’re never gonna get through that gate. But for others, the gate isn’t even locked to begin with, they can just walk on through. Most people lie somewhere in-between.

 

[Lanefan]

Reasons that have been provided thus far

1. You mistakenly listed the item in a room you didn't intend it to be in

Fine - mistakes happen. Here you've a choice to make: eat the mistake and leave it where it is, or put it where it should have been. In my view the general cut-off would be at the point the PCs get to the complex/dungeon/adventure; after that you're locked in.

2. During the course of play you decide it will make a better session for it to be a different room - do I also need to walk you through possible reasons you might think mid session that the treasure should be in a different room - or are you good coming up with a few things there on your own?

Doesn't matter, as any such reasons won't and can't stand up to:

There is the very old school more gygaxian style of gaming where you set up a dungeon and see if your players can beat it and act as an impartial referee as they go though it.

...which is, if the game's to maintain any integrity at all, how a DM has to be: an impartial referee.

I don't find that style of gaming to be very prevelant these days

Allow me to put on my curmudgeon's hat for a moment here.

That this style of play isn't as common can be put down to one root cause: player entitlement. This is something Gygax quite rightly railed against: players should have no built-in expectation that things will go smoothly, nor that they won't be pounding their heads in frustration sometimes, nor that their PCs will succeed at their tasks or even survive the attempt. That way, when they do succeed it actually means something.

And that player entitlement has found its way into game design - it's harder to kill PCs, other bad things have been mitigated (e.g. disintegrate just does h.p. damage) or removed (level drain, most item loss), levels advance at the speed of light - all of which make the game easier to play and at the same time much less challenging, much less engaging, and thus much less enjoyable in the long run.

Oh, and you don't have to get off my lawn but while you're on it the mower's over there...

 

[The Green Hermit]

"It's harder to kill PCs."

My husband absolutely refuses to have his character die. Because we need his begrudging continuation in the game at times, we humor him. (His character also drops in and out of the game with no notice/feasibility. We call it the mystique of Thokk.)

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe a different appraoch would be more illuminating.

When does designing the dungeon end? Must the dungeon be fully formed and you only run exactly what is written down by the time the session starts?

In an ideal world (which none of us ever have!) the dungeon or complex or adventure is fully designed before its first contact with the players/PCs.

What about a detail the players ask about that you haven't written in your notes. Do you make that up on the spot? Is it okay to do that even though the players may latch onto that detail and it become a red herring for them?

When hit with a curveball you've no choice but make something up (hence my saying we never have an ideal world! ) and if they latch onto it as a red herring that's fine.

In summation, I don't believe anyone has actually finished designing anything by the time the session starts because the players are going to ask questions you've never thought of the answers to and do things you've never thought of how to handle. Likewise until the players actually discover or find something what harm actually comes from moving treasure or changing enemy locations etc?

The harm doesn't come from the specific moving of whatever element(s), the harm comes from and through the motivation for doing so.

If you're trying to make things easier for the PCs e.g. putting a clue in their path they'd have otherwise missed, that's a harmful motivation. You've broken your neutrality as DM.

If you're trying to make things harder on the PCs e.g. moving some enemies into a nearby room as the PCs have in your view had it too easy so far, that's a harmful motivation. You've broken your neutrality as DM.

And it'd be extremely rare that a mid-adventure element change would be done entirely free of either of these motivations. Mistake correction (e.g. you've suddenly realized some maps of areas yet unexplored don't line up as they should) might be one.

 

[Lanefan]

Thinking about it from the characters I most enjoy playing, I wouldn't bring them along for an old school adventure. Mechanically they are sound - but their personality would get them killed. And honestly the more I think about it, the thing I most enjoy about these characters isn't their mechanics - it's their personality.

In what way would their personality get them killed? And, would this necessarily always be a bad thing, if it all made sense?

Genuinely curious, and speaking as someone who's role-played many a character straight into the grave.

 

[Lanefan]

Even right after the first D&D rules came out, there were groups looking for story over dungeon crawls ...

Just want to point out that by no means are these two things exclusive to one another; it's possible to build a fine story out of a series of dungeon crawls, or to have a series of dungeon crawls act in service to a fine story. (says he, who's been building arguably not-so-fine stories out of strings of dungeon crawls for the last 35+ years )

 

[Arilyn]

I don't want to be an impartial judge when I GM. I agree with the philosophy of being a fan of the player characters. I try to monitor the table and adjust to boredom or battle fatigue. If the players come up with a brilliant solution to the mystery that is way better than what I wrote in my notes, then "yes, you've got it!"

I will change things on the fly to make the story better, or to correct prep mistakes. This does not mean the players are getting a free ride. They are getting challenged and suffering from their mistakes. But I just don't see the point of having my players spin their wheels to the point of frustration. I'm not going to let them spend hours on a particular adventure and then let it fizzle because they couldn't find the magic key to get through the maze surrounding the mad king's tomb.

This doesn't mean that I'm changing things constantly or handing players everything on a silver platter. But little adjustments can improve your adventure, once it's out in the wild. And it really does help to pay attention to the players and adjust to keep up the engagement.

The idea that newer players are spoiled or lack fortitude is not something I agree with at all.

 

[FrogReaver]

In what way would their personality get them killed? And, would this necessarily always be a bad thing, if it all made sense?

Genuinely curious, and speaking as someone who's role-played many a character straight into the grave.

Take for example the overly curious wizard with no wisdom who keeps notes on everything that happens and experiments with everything he encounters.

So when we see signs of something truly nasty that we havne't encountered before I'm actively looking to observe it with no sense of caution.

I'm pretty sure this character was the DM's best friend because any plot he wanted to give us we had a good chance of rushing straight at it.

But this also means that in a typical DM as referee situation - my character isn't worried as much about living and completing the mission as he is about what he can observe and experiment with along the way. Which ultimately bodes for a quick death because dungeons aren't created with character like this in mind.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't want to be an impartial judge when I GM. I agree with the philosophy of being a fan of the player characters. I try to monitor the table and adjust to boredom or battle fatigue. If the players come up with a brilliant solution to the mystery that is way better than what I wrote in my notes, then "yes, you've got it!"

I will change things on the fly to make the story better, or to correct prep mistakes. This does not mean the players are getting a free ride. They are getting challenged and suffering from their mistakes. But I just don't see the point of having my players spin their wheels to the point of frustration. I'm not going to let them spend hours on a particular adventure and then let it fizzle because they couldn't find the magic key to get through the maze surrounding the mad king's tomb.

This doesn't mean that I'm changing things constantly or handing players everything on a silver platter. But little adjustments can improve your adventure, once it's out in the wild. And it really does help to pay attention to the players and adjust to keep up the engagement.

The idea that newer players are spoiled or lack fortitude is not something I agree with at all.

Well put. I think my approach lines up with yours pretty well. Being a fan of the characters is important, I think. Being a fan doesn’t mean that their lives will be easy, though.

I can understand @Lanefan and the concerns he has about changing things, though. If the players think the game works one way, and the DM is actually doing things another way, I can see the potential for problems.

This is why I wouldn’t ever tell my players that everything is determined beforehand. They know that I determine some things ahead of time and others in the moment.

This also mitigates the concern about the players knowing when I’ve gone off script. I’m equally comfortable there, so it’s not as noticeable. Sometimes they may know, which is fine, but very often they’re unsure what’s pre-determined and what’s decided during play.

It’s easy to mistake this kind of approach as “deceiving the players” if you think it’s being hidden from them.