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

[Maxperson]

It does seem to be a bit of a conflict! I doubt we’ll encounter a satisfying answer!

There is not now and never has been a conflict. Any such conflict is completely imaginary and made up by folks who refuse to read to understand and only read to respond.

 

[robertsconley]

They might have similar sorts of fictions, but they are not exploration games where conflict is a thing that can be avoided.

So, a serious question: are exploration games an accurate label?

To me, it feels similar to how dungeons function in Dungeons & Dragons, yes, dungeons are a common type of adventure in campaigns using D&D, but they’re not the only thing going on, nor are they always the primary focus of a D&D campaign.

The same applies to exploration and sandbox campaigns. Sure, in many , including my living world, adventurers make their way across the landscape. But often sandbox campaigns have a different purpose. For example, a recent campaign centered on adventuring in the City State of the Invincible Overlord. When the party finally left the city, it wasn’t to explore in the classic sense, it was to help one of the characters pursue a Viking revenge quest.

Which is why, upthread, I decided to call my take a living world sandbox campaign. But sandbox campaigns in general are often more than exploration of the unknown. Now with D&D, dungeon is in the brand name so they can't escape that. But with the sandbox campaign, it is a different story.

 

[robertsconley]

I don't really understand how that squares with the statements folks have made regarding non-planning from the GM, and I think this is at least adjacent to pemerton's questions. Specifically, this implies that there is, in fact, a planned sequence of events that will happen, and the PCs have found a shortcut which skips some of that planned sequence.

Given the pretty strong feeling in this thread about even the slightest suggestion that something has been pre-planned, rather than various other perspectives, I am...more than a little confused by the way this is presented. That is, the presentation seems--I stress, SEEMS--to be far more like what I hear in non-sandbox contexts, where the GM has set out what will happen, but there is some room for PCs to weave around/over/through those things.

Have I missed something? The impression I've gotten thus far is that anything even like pre-planning a sequence of encounters would be verboten. Which, again based on the impression I've gotten, would mean that it isn't possible for there to be a "bypassed encounter". There are simply entities in the world. The party might interact with them, or not interact with them.

It’s similar to a plan of battle, and in play it should be treated as such.

When drafting a plan of battle, a commander plans for what could happen and what they would like to see happen, but they understand that’s not what will happen. So the plan includes contingencies to prepare for the unexpected.

Even after the situation spirals into something unanticipated, the original plan still has value, logistics, availability of forces, lines of retreat or reinforcement. These elements help inform decisions as the battle unfolds.

In my living world sandbox campaign, my plans focus on what could happen. Unlike a military commander, I have no stake in the outcome beyond making sure the result is fun and engaging for the players. But I still need contingencies, because player choices will cause events to evolve in unpredictable directions.

The original plans remain useful because they contain detailed information: who the NPCs are, what their motivations are, what the locations are like. I’m under no illusion that what I imagine ahead of time is what will actually occur at the table, but because I have those plans, I’m more prepared to adapt on the fly. I don’t need to pause the session to figure out how the world responds when the players disrupt or bypass something I’ve set up.

Hope that helps clarify how I approach this. And now that you asked this, I think this also clarifies why the amount of prep I do doesn't lead to predetermined outcomes.

P.S. Still working on the reply to your other post. It's just the question you ask is one I've been asked many times in the past, and thus already had an answer for.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, that quote is horrible. I am sorry, this was first written in one way, then after posting I realised my initial formulation was awful so I hurried to edit it into something I thought might be slighlty better - but I am really not happy with this version either.

Take 3 on the idea I tried to convey: If you ask out of game ask the GM about a spesific thing would be something they might not want ("Would you rather we are not spending time investigating what happened in the castle") Then this is a type of question that can be anwered yes/no (As opposed to "Please explain why you decided this should happen in the castle").

The negative formulation is also of some omportance in this. Confirming that they are not wanting something is easier on their concience than confirming that they want something, as exclusion tend to leave more options on the table. In a sandbox a "no, do what you like" to the question asking if this is something we shouldn't try is the "default" and are not realy providing any new information. Asking positively "Do you want us to investigate what happened in the castle" would require a more elaborate example as you provide rather yhan a simple yes/no to approperiately respond to in most circumstances.

I hope this was less confusing!

As a DM I generally have no wants for the players to do or not do something. Like @Lanefan, it would take something very extreme for me to stop and tell the players that I don't want them to continue on with what they are doing. I've been playing and DMing since 1983 and I have yet to encounter a situation like that.

If they want to investigate what happened in the castle, they can. If they don't, they don't have to. If they decide one way or the other and later change their mind, that's cool as well.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The encounter discussion evolved from

• not understanding how players can bypass encounters; to
• encounters should be called potential encounters (because that is how WotC does it); to
• Can a Living World claim realism and consistency if the GM plans a series of encounters.

I think @AlViking summed it up perfectly and succinctly when he said "It still D&D"

Okay, yeah I am still trying to track down the line of posts so thank you for the breakdown. I mean, I think part of the issue is, again, living world sandbox folks are a bit diverse, and it is D&D so people will engage those mechanics in different ways in a sandbox. I don't think a sequence of encounters presents an issue. It is more about what gives rise to those encounters, and if the players can approach them in different ways, avoid them, etc. My benchmark is if it starts looking like those EL/CR affairs from the 2000s, where you have an EL 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 4, etc. Sandbox avoids a sense of artifice. If the encounters are creating a sense of artifice, then they probably are going to raise eyebrows. If they don't, you are probably fine. I tend to be very of the moment with encounters and if I do plan one, it is specifically a 'dramatic encounter', something I include, understanding it isn't the norm typically in a sandbox (but I like having this stuff on occasion). Again, there are no sandbox police who are going to arrest you. The point of a sandbox is to give players a sense of agency. So whatever you are doing, as long as you are honest about it, and they feel their agency is intact and their ability to freely explore the setting is intact, I don't really see an issue

 

[Umbran]

I want to understand how this fits into the explicit descriptions given and reiterated, most vehemently, against pre-prepped sequences of events. I see a sequence of encounters as a sequence of events, and I'm not sure how to parse them as non-events, if that is what I'm supposed to do (I have no idea.)

Consider a locked door. The PCs want something in the room on the other side of the door.
The PCs use Stone Shape to make a hole in the wall to pass through, rather than interact with the door.
The door has been bypassed entirely.

The presence of the door does not imply a specific plan by the GM that they interact with the door, and not do something else instead.

Do not equate "the GM has placed something in the world that acts as an obstacle between the PCs and their goals" with "the GM has planned a specific interaction between the PCs and the obstacle".

 

[JConstantine]

So no difference between a social encounter and a combat encounter, then?

Personally, I've never considered there to be one. As far as D&D is concerned, I've always viewed it as any situation that was designed to drain resources.

 

[robertsconley]

Personally, I've never considered there to be one. As far as D&D is concerned, I've always viewed it as any situation that was designed to drain resources.

Same here, although I am neutral on the drain resources part. It may drain resources or it may not, depending on the circumstances and choices made. The only difference is that combat is adjudicated through a formal wargame-like set of procedures. While social encounters are adjudicated through first-person roleplaying (intent) and skill checks (effectiveness). But the point of both, for the way I manage campaigns, is to put the player into the situation as if they were there as their characters.

 

[JConstantine]

And, as I noted, I invented (on request) an example upthread about a Paladin (raised in the priesthood, distant relative of the royal family) who got utterly shut-down by his GM on something that seemed highly out of sorts (an allied, albeit insular, priesthood of a deity specifically about defending their lands from threats...who outright refused ANY audience, period, no questions, move along.)

I'll admit, I'm not a fan of what the hypothetic GM did in this example, but by itself, it's not indicative of anything, which is why you were told that a pattern of behaviour should be established. If there were multiple examples of you being stymied like that, absolutely the GM is at fault. The example you gave didn't have anything in the way of roleplaying, so it feels like it's missing context that would exist in an actual session, but that single example could be a sign of the GM trying to ensure that your choice of deity/religion mattered. Obviously, it's not since you didn't create it as such, but context and precedence are important for determining such in actual play.

Much of this came from me talking about things like wanting "accountability" and "openness", being able to "seek restitution".

This is perfectly valid. I can only speak for myself, but as a GM I'm open to answering questions from my players. I think I'm a bit of an outlier on these boards in that most of my time is as a player, but as a player, if I've been unsatisfied with GM adjudication, I've generally brought it up after the session to avoid stalling the game out of respect for the other players, though if it's something that will severely impact the game/character (eg. death, irrevocably changing the character, etc.), then I might interrupt the session, but try to resolve it as quickly as possible. Given that, I'm open to the same as a GM. My answers might vary from full transparency to "trust me, bro" in the case of wanting to avoid revealing something too soon (baring in mind that I don't only run emergent sandboxes), but even with the latter, I'll come back to the player to elaborate once the moment has come.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Except I’ve described how it works without pre-planning several times already.

Note that I said satisfying!

There is not now and never has been a conflict. Any such conflict is completely imaginary and made up by folks who refuse to read to understand and only read to respond.

Sounds like the response of someone reading to understand for sure!