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

[hawkeyefan]

Agreed.

The question then becomes: Do I quietly rearrange items, monsters, and other game elements behind the scenes or do I say that I messed up and figure out a way forward with the players? As I stated above, I would do the latter and have. That kind of transparency in my experience works for all players, including the ones that would have a real problem with the DM shifting things around to, say, reduce difficulty or keep the players on the plot.

Yes, but as I said, sometimes due to the nature of communication, no one is at fault.

What blame is there for the DM to take when it's just a matter of a communication breakdown? It could just as easily be on the part of the players, or more likely, a little of column A and a little of column B.

Trust me, I have no problem with transparency. If I've messed up, I have no problem owning up to it and discussing it with my players. I also don't mind if I have to do the occasional retcon. Last night, I described something to my players and left out a pretty important detail that I meant to include. A few minutes later, when I realized my error, I corrected it, and then we moved on. Luckily, the lack of that detail hadn't really impacted the course they took. If it had, I would have allowed for them to revise their actions if they wanted.

That's not the kind of thing I am talking about though.

 

[iserith]

Yes, but as I said, sometimes due to the nature of communication, no one is at fault.

What blame is there for the DM to take when it's just a matter of a communication breakdown? It could just as easily be on the part of the players, or more likely, a little of column A and a little of column B.

I will always shoulder the blame as DM. Firstly because I'm doing most of the communicating by the very nature of the game and also because I'm the only person I can control. This has the side effect of setting an example for the players to follow and in my experience they do not disappoint.

 

[Fenris-77]

Players miss prepped material all the time, for a hundred different reasons. Sometimes I'm to blame, sometimes its the players. What happens after that depends entirely on the type of campaign, the specific players, the nature of the mistake or miscommunication, and the DM's style.

We seem to have ended up moving back through a lot of the same arguments form earlier in the thread. I see one particular observation a lot from the "I never move things crowd" - that the players wouldn't like it, or that it would ruin their immersion. That's fair, more than fair, however it also assumes that the moving is being done in a way that would be noticeable, to any way, on the player side of the screen. That isn't actually a reason contra, since it's not even remotely a given that players will, or even can notice. To assume otherwise is to imply that the DM doing the moving is incompetent, which doesn't seem like a friendly thing to assume.

Being transparent about actual mistakes isn't the issue at hand though. In those cases I think we can all agree that transparency is the best option.

 

[Prakriti]

As a side note, it would be interesting for WotC to explore this topic, and the idea of a sandbox campaign, in a future book. It seems they always release linear adventure modules, and never teach the players about alternatives.

From what I understand, Tomb of Annihilation is a hexcrawl and maybe a sandbox as well.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Everyone having fun all the time? Call me cynical, but that sounds a bit pie-in-the-sky from here.

That, and some frustration and delay can make a subsequent breakthrough all the more satisfying and absolutely memorable. Example: a party in which I was a player once got to a door in a dungeon that for whatever now-forgotten reason it was vital that we get through. The only way - the only way, and believe me we tried everything! - we could open this door was to solve the riddle written upon it. (think of the Fellowship at the door to Moria)

Two entire sessions, plus some mid-week discussions, went by and we couldn't solve this bloody riddle.

Finally, in the third session my PC (as in, me) tried what seemed like a too-simple answer and >poof< the door vanished to a roaring cheer around the table.

I don't remember anything else about that dungeon or even that campaign, but I do remember that damn door both for the frustration of getting through it and the breakthrough when we finally did.

How certain are you that the too-simple answer you came up with was the predetermined answer? Is it possible that after three sessions the DM simply said to himself, "These guys have been trying to solve this for forever and I really want them to see what's past that door. Lanefan's answer works. I'm going to let them have this one..."? How would you honestly ever know (unless it was a module and you read it afterwards)?

Personally, I don't generally help out my players as discussed in this thread unless they've gone past what I think of as the 'tipping point', because I think that you're right that satisfaction can arise from frustration. However, when they are frustrated and out of ideas, but aren't at the breaking point of giving up either, I'm liable to find a way to throw them a hint or such to help break the deadlock.

 

[iserith]

Players miss prepped material all the time, for a hundred different reasons. Sometimes I'm to blame, sometimes its the players. What happens after that depends entirely on the type of campaign, the specific players, the nature of the mistake or miscommunication, and the DM's style.

We seem to have ended up moving back through a lot of the same arguments form earlier in the thread. I see one particular observation a lot from the "I never move things crowd" - that the players wouldn't like it, or that it would ruin their immersion. That's fair, more than fair, however it also assumes that the moving is being done in a way that would be noticeable, to any way, on the player side of the screen. That isn't actually a reason contra, since it's not even remotely a given that players will, or even can notice. To assume otherwise is to imply that the DM doing the moving is incompetent, which doesn't seem like a friendly thing to assume.

Being transparent about actual mistakes isn't the issue at hand though. In those cases I think we can all agree that transparency is the best option.

This is sort of like saying it's not cheating if you don't get caught. At a table where the players would prefer the DM not to move stuff around at all, the DM is well-advised not to do it at all, no matter how good the DM may be at hiding what he or she is doing. That is particularly true if the DM agreed to adhere to this preference.

 

[Xetheral]

Why are we assuming an episodic game or that the party returns to a safe point at the end of each session? That's not a given. And even if we do assume that, why are we further assuming that the adventure location can be "completed" in that session? Lots to unwind here about these assumptions.

Do you generally run plot-based games? I'm sensing some disconnect here.

I'm not assuming anything. One of my examples of non-plot-related DM changes that can be pertinent in a location-based game simply happens to apply only to the subset of location-based games where session pacing is important. I used the further example of episodic location-based games as an illustration of a type of location-based game where pacing matters. I am well aware that location-based games can be episodic or non-episodic, and that session pacing can be important or unimportant.

As for my games, I run sandbox games that are not location-based. I fill my sandboxes with conflicts, most of which aren't tied to specific locations. Unlike the storyline in an event-based game, however, the conflicts in my games do not have pre-set plot arcs, and I have no agenda regarding how they will progress. Usually the PCs end up involved in multiple such conflicts at the same time, and it's up to them to allocate their characters' time and resources amongst competing, self-selected priorities.

On my end I thoroughly blend pre-prepared content with improvisation, and will freely change any and all material up until the moment it enters play. When deciding what content to include I emphasize verisimilitude, reinforcing player agency, and (above all) player enjoyment. Common changes I make include: (1) adjusting encounter difficulty on the fly to match telegraphed difficulty (particularly if it's an improvised encounter), (2) adjusting the sizes of locations/number of encounters to control session pacing, (3) delay or move up interruptions to the PC's current activity to match player moods and keep engagement high, (4) revising later material to tie back to open-ended material that I'd included earlier.

 

[prabe]

This is sort of like saying it's not cheating if you don't get caught. At a table where the players would prefer the DM not to move stuff around at all, the DM is well-advised not to do it at all, no matter how good the DM may be at hiding what he or she is doing. That is particularly true if the DM agreed to adhere to this preference.

If the DM says, "I'm not moving things around," then moves things around, that's at least a symptom of bad DMing. I suspect it's pretty easy to tell, playing at a table, whether a DM's style meshes with yours, on pretty much any axis of measure. Maybe you're far more interested in achieving goals and the DM is more interested in crawls of some sort (dungeon/hex) and uninterested in any sort of narrative momentum. Or, maybe you're more interested in poking around and seeing what stuff you can find and the DM is more interested in goals and stories and other such pointless fluff.

I haven't made it explicitly clear to the players in my campaigns, but I rearrange things and I occasionally shift numbers around. I've also screwed things up and handled things badly, and I've apologized to the players afterward.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Players miss prepped material all the time, for a hundred different reasons. Sometimes I'm to blame, sometimes its the players. What happens after that depends entirely on the type of campaign, the specific players, the nature of the mistake or miscommunication, and the DM's style.

We seem to have ended up moving back through a lot of the same arguments form earlier in the thread. I see one particular observation a lot from the "I never move things crowd" - that the players wouldn't like it, or that it would ruin their immersion. That's fair, more than fair, however it also assumes that the moving is being done in a way that would be noticeable, to any way, on the player side of the screen. That isn't actually a reason contra, since it's not even remotely a given that players will, or even can notice. To assume otherwise is to imply that the DM doing the moving is incompetent, which doesn't seem like a friendly thing to assume.

Being transparent about actual mistakes isn't the issue at hand though. In those cases I think we can all agree that transparency is the best option.

I think it's a matter of player and DM expectation. If I was to play a game with Lanefan, let's say, I'd be clear about how I approach the game, and make sure everyone was cool with that. If not, then we'd find mutual ground of some sort and then proceed accordingly.

So I think that if you've committed to running one way, then any breach of that process has to be well justified, or else it's cause for concern.

I forget whose example it was of the unpassable door.....for me, I'd simply say "you try for some time, but there's no way you can open this door" and then have them move on, with no expenditure of resources. Other DMs may sit and wait through every option the players may come up with to try and bypass the door, and only move along once they've exhausted all options and give up, noting what resources they expended on the attempt to open the door. Other DMs may decide "screw it, Open Door actually works, who cares what the module says", and tell them what happens as the door creak open.

I don't think there's any problem with any approach above, but if the players are expecting one approach, and you use another, then this could cause issues.

Personally, I'd likely smash my head into the table watching them try to open a door and continually fail, and would have the door open because why the hell is the door there anyway?!?! I'd have it open, and send them through and adjust everything on the fly, making things up as needed.

 

[Fenris-77]

This is sort of like saying it's not cheating if you don't get caught. At a table where the players would prefer the DM not to move stuff around at all, the DM is well-advised not to do it at all, no matter how good the DM may be at hiding what he or she is doing. That is particularly true if the DM agreed to adhere to this preference.

Ahh, there's that word again - cheating. I love loaded words, they do a marvelous job showing a position's true colors. Here's the deal, the players can prefer whatever they want, and they have every right to be upset if they realize that things are being moved around - deus ex machina sucks. What players don't get to prefer is how I prep and run a campaign. In that case they might prefer to run their own campaign. If I reorganize a bunch of my stuff after an unexpected hard right by the players that's no one's business but mine.

The extent to which I rearrange things, and what things I might rearrange are precisely where the campaign contract and player expectations come in. In a game more like the one iserith wants, I wouldn't move encounters no matter what the PCs do. What I might do is either deploy a floating NPC I had prepped for just that situations, or create that NPC on the fly to do the same job. Or, if it didn't matter much, I might not move anything. In a different kind of game, I might just move a couple of encounters to the new location if it made sense, or maybe not move anything and let the side game play out. It's all about consistency in the fiction and what makes the most sense in the moment.