D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AbdulAlhazred]

But the kind of prep we're talking about here isn't, "These bandits will be attacking this caravan when the PCs arrive on scene."

It is instead, "This is a caravan route, and there are bandits that prey on some of the caravans." One of the most likely way this will actually impact play is via a random encounter with bandits.

Wait a minute! How 'random' is it when the GM drew up the encounter table and made bandits (logically, I'm not criticizing it) the most common type of encounter? And there are going to be multiple chances for this to be rolled, at some point, while the GM has not literally dictated this exact instance of it MUST happen now, they've in effect engineered the overwhelming likelihood. Beyond that, I've read plenty of "well, sometimes I don't use the dice" statements, which again is fine, I imagine plenty of reasons for not doing so in all cases.

But beyond even the above, what happens if the bandits are not encountered? They just become a bigger and bigger threat, following some straightforward extrapolation, until finally the PCs WILL be called out to deal with them. It is super easy for the GM to build an overall situation which makes this inevitable, and 'plausible'. This is why plausibility, though necessary for a game to be comprehensible in play, is a weak criterion.

Now lets consider the Narrativist case and the trad LW case in contrast. What we find is that a bandit encounter in, say, my Dungeon World game, might easily arise. A player would describe through a bond/answer to a question/story they tell around the campfire how these bandits exist and are somehow part of his agenda, or maybe the GM would make a hard move and, say, they kidnap the dwarf's sister. Oh, but the dwarf previously was friends with one of the bandits, does he go wipe them out? In LW by contrast the GM thought, "bandits are a stock element that can develop into something, or at least be a fun encounter" and they go on the encounter tables. Later some story reason arises, like the dwarf's sister got put on a caravan and it was attacked. Why was THAT caravan attacked? Guess why!

In the end, it is a question of how the soup is made, not what the ingredients are.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Wait a minute! How 'random' is it when the GM drew up the encounter table and made bandits (logically, I'm not criticizing it) the most common type of encounter? And there are going to be multiple chances for this to be rolled, at some point, while the GM has not literally dictated this exact instance of it MUST happen now, they've in effect engineered the overwhelming likelihood. Beyond that, I've read plenty of "well, sometimes I don't use the dice" statements, which again is fine, I imagine plenty of reasons for not doing so in all cases.

But beyond even the above, what happens if the bandits are not encountered? They just become a bigger and bigger threat, following some straightforward extrapolation, until finally the PCs WILL be called out to deal with them. It is super easy for the GM to build an overall situation which makes this inevitable, and 'plausible'. This is why plausibility, though necessary for a game to be comprehensible in play, is a weak criterion.

Now lets consider the Narrativist case and the trad LW case in contrast. What we find is that a bandit encounter in, say, my Dungeon World game, might easily arise. A player would describe through a bond/answer to a question/story they tell around the campfire how these bandits exist and are somehow part of his agenda, or maybe the GM would make a hard move and, say, they kidnap the dwarf's sister. Oh, but the dwarf previously was friends with one of the bandits, does he go wipe them out? In LW by contrast the GM thought, "bandits are a stock element that can develop into something, or at least be a fun encounter" and they go on the encounter tables. Later some story reason arises, like the dwarf's sister got put on a caravan and it was attacked. Why was THAT caravan attacked? Guess why!

In the end, it is a question of how the soup is made, not what the ingredients are.

I think the point of a random table in this kind of campaign is a bit varied. The main reason I use them, is they shake me out of my tendencies as a GM. Yes I put together the tables in the first place, so they are consciously added, but most tables tend to be at least two tables deep. So you will often get results you don't normally use and the challenge is fitting them to that moment (I think if you get bandits and they aren't pre-existing in the setting, then you need to figure things out before the encounter takes place). The other reason I find them helpful is they can make the world behave in a sensible way. If you know there are bandits in an area, it makes sense they would come up a certain portion of the time, but by putting them on the table, it gives encounters a more natural feel. I use 2d10 tables because I like the curve. And it is easy to set things up so they happen with a frequency that feels right to the region. It also can make things a bit fair, because you might have stuff like bandits in the middle of the curve and things like Toad Demons at the more extreme ends

Why an encounter is happening is actually a pretty important topic in sandbox. People handle it in different ways. One encounter that frequently arises in mine are encounters with officials. This is some very simple advice I gave for handling that type of thing in one of my modules. This is a very basic way to do it though (and using the 1d10 in that way was something I picked up from Rob's GMing):

 

[zakael19]

So I've largely been treating this thread as a mechanism to examine my own thoughts/preferences/fuzzy feelings about TTRPGing by seeing what other people put out there and how it spurs me to respond. Below is kinda my long winded response to @JConstantine and @thefutilist 's reply to my recent posts about character internality, and also sums up how I've come to approach this medium to maximize my personal satisfaction:

A) Before all other hobbies, I am a reader. When I read a book, I generally don't know where it's going in specific - even if I can see major plot elements coming (or like, There's a Dark Lord - that's gonna show up somehow). When I ran AP/GM storyteller style play, I realized that all we were doing was coloring in the middle between the major plot elements, and I found that uninspiring. So from an overarching game perspective, I want to get to discover both the explicit setting details & where the story goes with my players - so I can get a sense of wonder and excitement in every session.

B) Until reading some of the framing behind narrativist games and the philosophies behind them, I had never stopped to critically think that the game is a conversation between participants and you can do intentional design and facilitation to shape how that flows. The discovery that Baker's real espoused core goal behind AW's moves was to do his utmost to force people to say interesting crap to make the game happen was revelatory to me! So much of the conversation in my previous games was just absolutely boring for me to witness - mechanical BS, running in in-character conversational circles with no movement, people constantly getting lost trying to remember who a NPC was or what they were "supposed to be doing" next, interminable combat with no stakes or interesting words, making people's eyes glaze over with read-aloud text, being looked at constantly as the sole authority to all content.

C) I need a setting that excites me personally to inspire my creativity. It still needs to leave plenty of blanks and unanswered questions, but provide the bones there to same-page everybody on the fictional expectations. I personally love setting exploration, through the character's eyes! Imaging weird unknowable worlds is a delight when I read a book, I want to do that in my RPGs as well. But I want my players to be as excited about discovering elements established up front as I am, so things need to be personal and relevant. Full "no-myth" doesn't work for me, boring high-myth doesnt either. Most FITD games are a pretty good example, Stonetop is my gold standard for a setting with tons of bones and open spaces.

D) I want my player's characters to be protagonists. That means that this story is theirs, and we need to know the interiority of them as well. When you read a novel that has good characterization - you tend to spend a lot of time inside that character's head, experiencing their emotions; setbacks; growth; loves; hatreds; etc. I need to see that come out in the conversation especially since I exclusively play via online voice. I've never played with professional actors who can convey a wide array of emotions via body language and trained + modulated tone, and honestly I'd still prefer to know the internal life. Because that's how quality protagonists are written, and I refuse to accept my play having less.

Unrelated: @Hussar I don't think that framing out a setting and questions and hooks or whatever is inherently writing a story; it's at best writing Mad Libs with the players required to make those blanks mean anything or an outline with a lot of ???. At most, I'll accept that all participants around the table are co-equal storytellers in the sense of Story Now play. Nothing I say into the fiction as the GM means much until the table as a whole accepts it and adds their components.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I ran a modified Phandelver adventure myself, and it sounds like the castle in question is Cragmaw Castle.

But I am going to disagree. It's not a problem of plausibility and logic. Why?

Because even with only your side of the story, there are too many butterflies who were flapping their wings just so for the chain of events to occur as they did. If it were a plausible outcome, you would have felt the breeze of one or more of them before you left adventuring and thus have been able to account for it in your preparation before you left.

This was a case of simple bad refereeing. And based on my experience with organized gaming, it probably started with an idea for a "cool plot" involving your castle, which was retroactively justified to make sense.

One of the hard and fast rules I follow in my campaigns is no retroactive justification on my part. Once the campaign starts, I will work with the framework I have. If there are any issues, I will fix them after the campaign ends, before starting a new one in the same setting.

Well, the referee in question is highly skilled. I think maybe this particular 'move' was a bit off. One of the principles that I adhere to pretty firmly in most Narrativist play is 'no takebacks'. I didn't wager the possession of my castle as a stake in anything, and I had earned it fairly. So it shouldn't have been something that was on the table, and I do find that to be a problem with a lot of trad play. The stakes, what am I balancing in a game play sense here? OK, if I go on this adventure, then I might achieve X, and it might cost me Y. OK, I can make some decisions. That's what is needed. Some people have suggested that games with these unclear stakes are not really games at all. I'm not that much of a hardass about it, but they have a point. I've found that trad play is more like a bunch of little games strung together, whereas a good Narrativist game (not all are perhaps) has a kind of overall game play that has some real integrity as a game.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Wait a minute! How 'random' is it when the GM drew up the encounter table and made bandits (logically, I'm not criticizing it) the most common type of encounter? And there are going to be multiple chances for this to be rolled, at some point, while the GM has not literally dictated this exact instance of it MUST happen now, they've in effect engineered the overwhelming likelihood. Beyond that, I've read plenty of "well, sometimes I don't use the dice" statements, which again is fine, I imagine plenty of reasons for not doing so in all cases.

It is certainly different from a planned encounter. Planned encounters are usually very detailed concepts. I have no problem with them, but they do feel totally different in play from random ones. Also planned encounters tend to be specific. I have an encounter with a specific group of bandits that is going to happen, and I may even have further adventure ideas associated with this (that is more in the realm of plots). But most sandbox random tables are just entries of different things from the monster books, maybe of different groups in the area, but you don't necessarily know what the encounter to be). Usually if I have bandits uncounted from a table, it is not some elaborate thing. Bandits are a feature of the genre, so I just assume most are simply looking to get rich. I may roll to see how vicious they are. In most cases it is a "give us your money" and if the PCs say "ok" they can move on> Sometimes players even negotiate deals with them. I tend to draw a bit on history here where most bandit groups in the period I am drawing from were just farmers trying to get by in the offseason, so I tend to play them that way. A little bit of randomness for color here can go a long way though.

Also in my campaigns will look something like this:

Note there are a bunch of additional tables this one can open up. But we can just stick with these results as they are the more common ones. Also for reference this is what the Fan Xu personality table looks like (it is a d100 roll):

That table is about two page I think.

Some thoughts:

Most of the Fan Xu table results are fairly easy to to avoid (it is a TN 5 which is low) and if they happen, mostly they are small groups of local officials. They are mainly there to help reflect the world the party inhabits. A group of constables are not going to be a huge impediment to a party, they may complicate things, they might send word somewhere, but most parties don't have a hard time dealing with such things. And the specifics of what any of these encounters mean, aren't clear until the context emerges in play. Like I don't know at the start of a campaign what it will mean if Purple Cavern sect shows up. I have to look them up and make a judgment based on whether they would even care who the party is, and then figure out what they might think of them. Most of the time, such encounters are friendly or neutral and a chance for the party to get more information. Now if they get a Grudge table roll, yes that could be a big combat with someone who has an existing grudge (but importantly grudges are usually a product of player actions: i.e. they kill someone and that person's sect now has a grudge with them). And if they get a specific personality, that could go in any direction. You never know what kind of impression players will make on a given martial personality and vice versa (this is also a pretty big genre trope and one that is useful for agency because it is all about how they gel with one another)

All that said, if people want to do ti another way, that is fine by me. Some people find tables dull for example. There is a routine to rolling on tables every time they travel and fail survival rolls. Not everyone wants that. Some people might want anything that happens in a game to be exciting and directly relevant to the players. I like there to be interesting coincidences that I can't plan for ahead of time as a GM. So random tables open that up for me

 

[bloodtide]

It's all just personal preference. I only want to experience play through my character because that's what works best for me. If a different approach works better for you, great! Except from the other side of the fence there's claims that all D&D and related games are railroads, the GM controls 99% of what happens, that GMs must have restrictions on what they do or they will abuse their role in the game and players need to be protected. It's stated that we're playing a game and the true believers experience something that transcends the gaming experience, although I assume that was just trolling.

Experiences that transcend normal things is what life is all about, at least for some people.

There are some people that are perfectly fine playing a game where they strictly follow some rules, make some moves and then at some point stop playing. It can be fun for many people. Even I have done it. For example once when the power was out I played a game of checkers with my sister.

But given a choice, I would much rather do an experience that transcends "just playing a game". And I'm not alone.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So why is it a bad thing for the players to have constraints? Because in any game I've played everyone at the table has constraints, player and GM alike (if there even is a GM). The constraints are just different and enforced in different ways. In D&D the constraints on the DM vary from one table to the next but if the DM decides to TPK every encounter they won't have a game for long. The constraints may vary from one table to another but they're still there.

It’s not bad at all. It’s an essential part of play.

I brought it up because @Micah Sweet asked why place constraints on GMs. And the answer is basically the same… it’s an essential part of play.

 

[Lanefan]

I literally said there WAS "some potential for DIY".

It's just not "some potential for DIY in the foundational core".

This is like saying that you can't program anything at all, ever, while using a Windows machine, and that the ONLY way to be able to be a TRUE programmer is if you're writing binary directly. Just because you use a graphical OS, doesn't mean you aren't a programmer.

Are you genuinely going to say that the only way you can have any meaningful DIY potential in a game is if you can literally rip out the most fundamental rules and replace them entirely? Because--if I were a betting man, which I am not--I'd (almost) be willing to bet good money you don't actually want to rip out, say, the fundamental idea of using d20s from D&D, and don't consider the ability to do that necessary for being able to have "some potential for DIY" when playing D&D.

In comparison to the TSR editions, the WotC editions have very limited space for kitbashing without affecting the foundational core, thanks (no thanks) to the WotC designers having gone the unified design route rather than discrete subsystems.

In 1e I can rip out entire subsystems and replace them with something different without (usually) too many knock-on effects to the rest of the game. I know this because I've done it.

Not possible with any of the WotC editions, as a major change to the design here is inevitably going to cause knock-on effects everywhere else; it's more work than it's worth to go and find them all and stamp them out, and doing so can simply cause the knock-ons to cascade in any case.

 

[AlViking]

It’s not bad at all. It’s an essential part of play.

I brought it up because @Micah Sweet asked why place constraints on GMs. And the answer is basically the same… it’s an essential part of play.

This originally started with the assertion that games are better if there are written rules for additional constraints on the GM. The reason for the assertion was never given. More than one poster has stated the same with it being stated as objective fact, not just preference. But when asked why you can hear the crickets.

 

[robertsconley]

And the answer is basically the same… it’s an essential part of play.

Why is it essential? That the part that is unclear to readers.