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

[Imaculata]

I think I fall somewhere squarely in the middle of this discussion. I think a certain amount of shifting things around is fine. I have picked up a good plot point or two from the players on rare occasions, just because what they came up with was something that fit the narrative well, and didn't contradict anything that had been established. Most of the time though, I'm way ahead of them and every twist is carefully set up.

I have also on occasion waved away that last hitpoint of a monster, in the interest of coolness and speeding up a battle that was outstaying its welcome. I have also had enemies flee, most of the time because it was in their nature, but also to shorten a battle (rarely to make it easy on the players).

On rare occasions I have moved a clue or important item so that the players would find it. This can be a minor correction when I feel I haven't properly foreshadowed something. Most of the time though, items remain where I placed them when designing a dungeon.

During battles, I'll sometimes have reinforcements show up to make a battle harder, or drop a planned wave of enemies to make it easier. But whatever is on the battlefield, I play to its max efficiency.

However, when the pc's are on the ropes and about to die, as long as they are not low level (1-3), I do not spare them. My monsters will attempt to kill them and prevent them from dragging away their wounded to safety, that is as long as the monsters aren't in a similar situation. My monsters have goals too. One of those goals is to kill the pc's, the other might be their own survival. I don't pull my punches as a DM.

 

[Coroc]

@Fenris-77 @Charlaquin @Imaculata

Well you are all correct that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I could not enjoy a game where I notice the DM is trying to help through every fight.

Otoh even if there is "open world" communicated I think some "design limits" should be in order.
Imagine your group of level 1 PCs just walks out of their hometown.
If they take the road left they find a cave with pesky kobolds which are about the right challenge for their level. If they walk straight they meet some orcs which can be deadly for them but maybe they still manage.
So far it is all fair game impov.
But beware them walking right, because after some miles they land in a swampy area where the level 20 green dragon has made his lair. Them, expecting lizardmen (and maybe meeting some of those, who are in fact servants of the green dragon) suddenly are in something far out of their scope, and, if played realistic is 100% TPK.
Why, you may ask. It was communicated upfront, they did eventually not read the signs (swamp=lair?) or whatever.
But just think about this: Would the city allow such a big threat existing in their near surroundings?
And if, for eventually they could not get rid of it or for whatever reasons, would not the existence of this beast being so close be the biggest story of them all in the hometown?
So if you got this scenario, then the players never could logically run into that encounter unwarned or your "realistic" sandbox open world has some very big design flaws.

 

[Imaculata]

I think running a sandbox campaign does not remove the need for a balanced world that respects the pc's current level. Yes, the players can go in any directions, and yes they might be able to run into tougher monsters that are above what would be considered a fair challenge. But it doesn't mean a CR 20 encounter is just around the corner for a level 1 party. Even a sandbox campaign requires balance. But I think this may stray a bit outside of the topic of this thread.

What we are discussing mostly is to what degree the DM should be moving things around on the fly. So with that main topic in mind, I'd say that it is perfectly fine for the DM to say that the CR 20 dragon is currently not in its lair when the level 1 party ventures in that direction. It is a little bit convenient, but it also prevents an unfair party wipe.

I don't think there is any limit to how much a DM can move things around. But I feel it hurts immersion if in doing so, the DM contradicts things that have already been established. And so I would advise DM's to show restraint in using this 'power'.

 

[dave2008]

Just curious. Which DMG are you quoting?

5e, sorry that it my default assumption these days.

 

[Fenris-77]

A big part of the static in this thread comes from some different assumptions about exactly how 'sandbox-y' the campaign is. Just for clarity, I am not talking about agreeing to run a sandbox and then dropping the encounter I want regardless of what the players do. I'm really talking about games that have a stronger specific narrative, and one that had been mutually agreed upon at the start of the game. The stronger and more specific the narrative the more potential there is for the possibility of floating objectives to be the right tool to keep things moving. There are lots of ways to prevent that possibility, and I would use any and all of them, but moving things as a last resort isn't off my playlist. I hope that helps clear up my position.

 

[dave2008]

This is literally the exact opposite of what i want from the DM.

I don’t want rhe DM to TRY to give me the sweet taste of victory. I want to earn it.

I want the DM to provide a clearly described environment such that my choices have clear and understandable consequences. I want an environment that exists to interact with that I feel I can trust and believe

if my choices lead to a cakewalk defeat of my enemy, then awesome. If they lead to my crushing defeat then oh well.

I’m an experienced B/X player...4 character deaths in 4 sessions are not going to bother me.

if I lose 4 characters in 4 sessions, my feeling would be that i need to get better

I just wanted to jump in and say I understand your point of view and respect your desires and believe that is a completely acceptable, and I even think normal, way to interact / expect the fiction of the game to work.

The only thing I want to point out as a DM (almost exclusively for the the last 30 yrs) is that it is really, really, really hard to create a full realized world for the players to interact with. There is only so much time and so much prep you can do, and then your players go an do something completely different. I just want to say that if you DM occasionally has to change things on the fly, don't throw he or she out with the bathwater just because you catch them in the act. Your preferred DM style is really hard, you need to trust them even if they make a mistake every once and a while.

 

[iserith]

In my experience, the sort of game that @Monayuris wants - no storyline, sand box - is quite prep-heavy, but is actually a breeze to run as DM and more fun since you're playing to find out what happens. Given a choice, that's the sort of game I want to run, particularly if I can run multiple groups through it to have a greater return on my prep. Luckily, I have a large pool of players to pull from.

That said, because it so prep-heavy, I think this is why we see so many DMs running event-based adventures ("plot-based"). I can prep a 4-hour plot-based session in about 15 minutes. A decent-sized sandbox is going to take me days, weeks or months if it's a full-on campaign.

So it's no wonder that some read Monayuris' position and have no earthly idea what the poster is talking about except in theory. To a DM used to running plot-based adventures, not moving stuff around to keep the PCs on the plot is going to seem very strange. You almost have to do it to keep things on track. You absolutely don't have to do it in the sort of location-based adventures Monayuris prefers, and arguably shouldn't. You can do it as I say upthread in response to @hawkeyefan but it doesn't actually make a lot of sense to since there's really no reason to do it.

 

[dave2008]

In my experience, the sort of game that @Monayuris wants - no storyline, sand box - is quite prep-heavy, but is actually a breeze to run as DM...

I don't separate prep from being a DM

 

[iserith]

I don't separate prep from being a DM

There are different levels of prep. In my Eberron campaign, which is plot-based, I can throw together a session very quickly. In the campaign that will follow it, it's a hexcrawl plus megadungeon. It is WAY more prep. Even my one-shot mini-sandbox that I run for pickup groups took me weeks to put together and it's just a replayable town-to-dungeon game for apprentice-tier characters.

Given that, there's a disincentive to running the sort of game Monayuris prefers and, I expect, a greater number of DMs running plot-based games. If a person is used to running plot-based games, that poster's position is naturally going to seem very strange.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I can already imagine the replies about "well, nothing in your post means having move or change things, and yadda yadda". Just assume that behind this post are all my other posts. Not to be a jerk, but because it doesn't do the thread any good to rehash. I just wanted to point out that some consideration for DM agency might be appropriate.

So what are some examples of DM agency? It's not something you hear used a lot, so I'm curious what are some examples.

Not that I disagree....I think I agree with your point overall, but I'm curious what you mean.