D&D General Not Railroad, Not Sandbox ... What else is there?

éxypnos

Explorer
RPR. Role playig game. What is the role in, if not a story?
Read the definition of STORY I posted. Now, A ROLE in D&D is the function assumed by a person or thing in a particular situation (that's how the game was designed). The ROLE I played last week IRL was product strategy consultant. In a game it was a meat shield. One of my son's has the ROLE of Machinists Mate Nuclear (MMN) on an attack sub. NOTHING to do with a story in any case.
 

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Jer

Legend
Supporter
That's not a megadungeon.
I mean, it could be if it kept repeating over and over again, occasionally with some staircases to take you down to another level where the hallway just continues repeating over and over again.

The worst megadungeon ever conceived! Or possibly the 6666th layer of the Abyss? A true torture chamber for adventurers!

(That actually reminds me of a game I ran from the Basic module Castle Caldwell and Beyond back when I was a wee DMling - there's an adventure in that module that is supposed to be the dungeon of a bad guy but it's just a spiral of rooms that lead into the middle of the fortress. Maybe the most linear dungeon crawl adventure I've ever seen actually published.)
 

éxypnos

Explorer
Funny, I think a non-story adventure is by definition pointless, not that you cannot make it fun, it may even be a preference, but a story, by definition has a point - it starts, points in a direction, and arrives at a solution based on PC's actions.
So, life doesn't have a point? PCs trying to gain, power, abilities, wealth has no "point"???????? I will state categorically that is false. No doubt.
 

So, life doesn't have a point? PCs trying to gain, power, abilities, wealth has no "point"???????? I will state categorically that is false. No doubt.
I can't speak for @gamerprinter , but I think he means point colloquially. Meaning a story point: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, resolution, conclusion. And no, most lives do not have a "point" when referenced this way.
 


You seem to have completely missed improvisational styles, and those in which the material is developed in response to player action.
Indeed. The "Play to see what happens" style of Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark is certainly not a railroad - and with the player influence in it and character grounding in the worlds it's not a sandbox. Sometimes the MC/GM doesn't know any more about what's going on than the players.
 



gamerprinter

Mapper/Publisher
So, life doesn't have a point? PCs trying to gain, power, abilities, wealth has no "point"???????? I will state categorically that is false. No doubt.
Life does, this discussion does not. Again I write one-shots as a publisher - who buys the module, runs it, who their players are and what their backstories could possibly be is outside my knowledge when I create their adventure - but I'm not writing their personal stories, which is certainly important. I look it at like life. Every person has their own story, their goals and dreams - that's the same thing as a character back story. Now an adventure is like life itself, in that what happens completely divorces from your personal story, rather the obstacles and opportunities you encounter, threats, responsibilities, earning a living, paying for your home and food, things that impacts you, not caused by you (now how you negotiate those becomes part of your story) - those things, in of itself aren't your personal stories, those things are life and in the game that is what the module or written adventure is, a representation of the life beyond you - it occurs separately to your personal story. Life/the adventure happens whether you have a story or not. So I'm not saying your character's personal goals aren't important, they most certainly are. But I'm determining the life outside your personal story. You control yourself, not the environment around you - I create the environment only and everybody else in it, who is not a PC. I cannot tell your stories, I have no idea what those are.

Note: I never create pre-gen characters, it's your responsibility to provide the PC and their backstory, not me. I write adventures, not novels.
 
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