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

[prabe]

Not exactly DM agency (or I wouldn't call it this) but one of the players started out writing his character with a murder-hate-on for dragonborn, which exist in my setting. I asked him to please pick a non-PC race, so he wasn't barring another player from playing a dragonborn. He moderated it, to a strong dislike.

Maybe a better of DM agency would be disallowing PC races. I don't allow drow or duergar or even deep gnomes, at least in part because they were exterminated (for the most part) for reasons.

Maybe choosing not to permit PCs to change things in the setting that are there because I want them there. My setting has no gods. I know what happened, and I know how it could be undone (sort of, it wouldn't bring the previous gods back so much as enable new beings to become gods) but I really don't want PCs to do it, so they might find out about the how, but I have zero intention of allowing them to find the necessary tools.

 

[Fenris-77]

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.

Generally I mean the active management of events to try and best realize the story and the actions of the players on that story. Most of what I mean isn't controversial, anything from tailoring random or improv'd encounters to best fit the moment they occur to attempting to incorporate player backstory into a larger narrative. In short, to best accomplish the task the DM agreed to take on when the campaign started, which is to facilitate the best story possible. Where opinions start to differ is specifically on the movement of encounters, items, NPCs and the like, all of which could be in service of the above agreement with the players (when it's not its something else, obviously).

My my game, I don't move things willy-nilly. I also don't move things at the last minute. What I might do, and only if necessary, is move a clue, or hook, or an NPC to somewhere more out in front of where the PCs are headed, or seem to be headed. I'm not dropping the letter in the drawer the moment before they open it mind you, I'd make that call once I realized the plan was to infiltrate the Duke's house instead of his Chamberlain's. The players still have to find it, still have to search the right room and I'm not just giving it to them, I'm just dropping it off some ways in front in a way that's consistent with the where I originally had it. What I'm avoiding is spending several sessions infiltrating house after house looking for the silly thing, which would be a waste. In a case where the players missed that letter it stays where I put it, it's not moving again magically, I have to find another way to get the players the information they need to succeed.

As mentioned upstream I also might or might not have dropped other clues or hints once things got off track, and there would have been more than one. It's impossible to say exactly how that would work outside an actual table at play. All of the above supposes a narrative heavy game where the story, following the clues, is actively what the players want, not just what I want. The goal is to facilitate player agency, not constrict it. Players are always making decisions based on enormously incomplete information. Sometimes they go left when you expect them to go right, and when that was a reasoned and thought out decision, when that left hand turn looks like a cool story, probably even better than the one I had in mind, I'll accommodate the player's input to the fiction. You can allow the players to fail, and I do, regularly, but when they succeed unexpectedly in telling a great story, that needs to be acknowledged, even if it isn't the one I had planned.

 

[iserith]

I think part of the problem of communicating these concepts is how "story" is defined. To me, "story" is what emerges from the players interacting with the environment (or the plot). What they do and how things turn out - that's the story. Others seem to be implying "plot" is "story" and this gets things a bit muddled when DMs who use different approaches talk to each other.

An easy way to think about it in my view is that "story" is the byproduct of play when the players engage with the environment (in a location-based adventure) or the plot (in an event-based adventure). The complication that an event-based adventure has is keeping the players on the plot. Thus, the DM sometimes needs to drop extra clues or move stuff around in order to keep the players and their characters on it. (Using story-based advancement or possibly milestone XP also helps as an incentive.) In a location-based adventure, this is totally unnecessary. In my opinion, this complication makes event-based games harder to run, but easier to prep. Conversely, location-based adventures are easier to run and harder to prep.

 

[prabe]

I think part of the problem of communicating these concepts is how "story" is defined. To me, "story" is what emerges from the players interacting with the environment (or the plot). What they do and how things turn out - that's the story. Others seem to be implying "plot" is "story" and this gets things a bit muddled when DMs who use different approaches talk to each other.

An easy way to think about it in my view is that "story" is the byproduct of play when the players engage with the environment (in a location-based adventure) or the plot (in an event-based adventure). The complication that an event-based adventure has is keeping the players on the plot. Thus, the DM sometimes needs to drop extra clues or move stuff around in order to keep the players and their characters on it. (Using story-based advancement or possibly milestone XP also helps as an incentive.) In a location-based adventure, this is totally unnecessary. In my opinion, this complication makes event-based games harder to run, but easier to prep. Conversely, location-based adventures are easier to run and harder to prep.

I agree that stories emerge from playing the game (which is a thing that makes games labeled as "story-based" something of a hard sell for me). In my own campaigns, the parties have goals (in the older campaign, several) and they pursue those goals. Often, I decide what will be between them and their goals very close to when it arises in-game. So far, I haven't had any of them really try to solve a mystery, but if they do, I'll come up with multiple clues, and I'll decide where they are, and if the party makes reasonable choices I didn't anticipate I might shift one or more of them to where the party ends up being.

 

[Charlaquin]

@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.

I wouldn’t design the game that way. It’s one thing to have the game be open enough that there’s a possibility of getting in over their heads, but it’s another thing to have certain death just around the corner if the players go the wrong way. In sandbox games I like having zones of different difficulty, and generally you have to travel further from civilization to get to the more difficult areas. This turns things like encumbrance limits and food and water management into a form of level gating.

 

[iserith]

In sandbox games I like having zones of different difficulty, and generally you have to travel further from civilization to get to the more difficult areas. This turns things like encumbrance limits and food and water management into a form of level gating.

Or levels in the dungeon getting more difficult the deeper you go. What is old is new again!

 

[Imaculata]

This is pretty much how I set up my sandbox as well. The players start off in a low level area, surrounded by interesting locations and plothooks that are level appropriate. As they travel further, the difficulty increases gradually. They will encounter challenges that may be too tough, but which will totally be waiting for them later when they are a little stronger.

On top of that I have a main plot and some side plots. From time to time I will drop events into the campaign that move the main plot or side plots forward, or dangle a plothook in front of the players, and which do not rely on any specific location. This allows the players to go wherever they want, and chase whatever sideplots they want, and still also progress the main plot from time to time, and encounter new quests. This prevents the campaign from ever reaching a point of boredom, where there is simply nothing left to do in a particular location. I make sure that the plot and quests appears wherever the players are, on top of things that are already in that location by design.

 

[Curmudjinn]

This is pretty much how I set up my sandbox as well. The players start off in a low level area, surrounded by interesting locations and plothooks that are level appropriate. As they travel further, the difficulty increases gradually. They will encounter challenges that may be too tough, but which will totally be waiting for them later when they are a little stronger.

On top of that I have a main plot and some side plots. From time to time I will drop events into the campaign that move the main plot or side plots forward, or dangle a plothook in front of the players, and which do not rely on any specific location. This allows the players to go wherever they want, and chase whatever sideplots they want, and still also progress the main plot from time to time, and encounter new quests. This prevents the campaign from ever reaching a point of boredom, where there is simply nothing left to do in a particular location. I make sure that the plot and quests appears wherever the players are, on top of things that are already in that location by design.

This is how I prefer to run games as well.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I've only read the first 4 pages, so apologies if this has already been covered.

IMO, using elements that are in 'superposition' in your games is perfectly fine, although a certain degree of moderation is desirable, as with most things. It isn't really much different from improvisation.

I have a full time job, a wife, 2 cats, I run 2 campaigns, and play in another 1.5 campaigns (same campaign world, but the DM and I have a solo side game for when the other players can't make it). Plus I'm still trying to beat Bloodborne when I'm not getting distracted by Breath of the Wild. Plus I'm reading Oathbringer and Abaddon's Gate and have a huge backlog of books I honestly intend to read. Oh, and I still mean to beat the third Dragonage. And Persona 5... Point is, I don't have time to detail everything in my campaign worlds an Elder Scrolls game. I do my best to sketch out relevant portions of the setting, but my players constantly do things that I didn't anticipate and have to make up on the fly. Heck, sometimes I have a game and not enough prep time and have to run from a few crude ideas quickly jotted down before game.

Using elements dynamically and improvising is basically the same thing as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Lanefan]

@Monayuris and @The Mirrorball Man, I think you two have hit on a strong distinction in D&D philosophy and play style. For some people, D&D is a vehicle for collaborative storytelling. For these people, the illusionism is an understood and accepted, even welcomed part of the experience. For others, though, D&D is a system for emergent storytelling. The DM isn’t telling the story, or even co-creating it with the players. The DM is laying down the parameters for the players’ engagement with the systems, and the story, such as it is, is what arises organically out of the players’ engagement within that set of parameters. For these people, the illusionism is the DM changing the parameters on them, and that is not desirable. That makes the story less emergent and more constructed, which is not what folks who prefer that style of play want.

Well put; though I'd add a third branch, perhaps less common but still significant: where the game is a vehicle for a hard-rail story that's mostly pre-set before play starts - a campaign intended to consist only of a single published AP. The story isn't arrived at collaboratively, nor does it organically emerge: it was there all along, just waiting to be played through.

Myself, I'm solidly in the second group here, where the story arises organically out of the players' engagement with the setting as laid down by the DM.