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

[pemerton]

As per my later post, this sounds like utterly pointless semantic quibbling to me. To bypass is go around something instead of straight through it. You're trying to treat words as as highly technical terms of art, laden with all sorts of deep and very specific meaning, while we're just having a conversation over a beer and picking whichever word gets the general point across.

Alternatively: you're all assuming map-and -key and/or timeline-based prep and resolution, but for some reason are being coy about it?

 

[SableWyvern]

The GM's narration of the sniper, and of how the PCs do or don't succeed in avoiding being sniped, isn't based on map-and-key prep. The PCs might be "bypassing" obstacles and enemies in the fiction, but no one is "bypassing" anything at the table.

So, like I said earlier:

Well, you can easily say they engaged with the encounter by responding to the situation and taking action. But this kind of semantic quibbling adds nothing of value to the conversation, because everyone knows exactly what happened and it matters not if we use slightly different words to say the exact same thing.

 

[SableWyvern]

Alternatively: you're all assuming map-and -key and/or timeline-based prep and resolution, but for some reason are being coy about it?

Who has been even a little coy about this? We've been talking for thousands of posts about our processes that involve keyed maps and timelines. @robertsconley alone has posted dozens of keyed maps.

Edit: Although I note that elsewhere you seem to be implying that with map and key prep you also have a pre-designed resolution, which I find it very hard to believe you have taken in good faith from anything anyone in this thread has ever actually said.

 

[Faolyn]

Which would logically make it in the players'/PCs' best interests to try to avoid or bypass those tests when they can, wouldn't it? Path of least resistance, and all that?

And aren't the players in BW or Torchbearer also trying to reach a finish line; to wit, the achievement of their characters' goals and beliefs?

If the PCs are trying to gain entry to a castle and my notes (or the module) tell me there's five guards on the drawbridge you'd quite rightly call it a railroad were I to force the PCs into the presence of those guards without any choice in the matter.

And yet here you look askance at the idea of the players being able to bypass "an encounter" with those guards by, say, sneaking around the side of the castle and trying to find some other way in should they so choose.

A bypassed encounter is just that. Nothing to do with consequences, other than the encounter is still "out there" and can potentially be met again later. The guards on the drawbridge, for example, that the PCs didn't deal with on their way in to the castle might pose a problem for them on their way out if not bypassed again, or represent extra reinforcements if the place goes on alert while the PCs are inside.

I think I may have figured it out, although @pemerton will have to tell me if I’m wrong.

In the games he plays, in the examples he has given, PCs don’t have choices other than in how they go about accomplishing their own goals and interests. They’re never presented with the possibility of missing an encounter because there are no encounters that exist unless they are there to further the PC’s interests. He even says as much:

When I GM Burning Wheel, for instance, I feel "strongly empowered" to present my friend with scenes/situations that enliven and put pressure on the priorities that he has chosen for this PC (Beliefs, Instincts, etc).

Which is certainly a way to play, but it’s not better or worse, or more or less empowering, than other ways to play. It’s just different.

So this seems to be assuming map-and-key resolution, with expectations about how the players will have their PCs respond to the elements noted in the key.

Not really. The players have a choice. This is the important thing. They chose one door over another. They could also choose to go back after they finished with the room behind Door #1 and go to Door #2, thus ensuring they deal with both encounters. Or they could not go down the hallway at all and miss both. But because, in my example, their choice made it so they couldn’t engage with the second encounter, they bypassed it.

And while this particular example was map-based, it’s not limited to that. My D&D GM runs their game for two different groups. Apparently my group has had more encounters than the other because we’ve gone out of our way to befriend NPCs that the other group ignored or fought. By befriending them, we “unlocked” additional options. I don’t know how they write their adventures so I don’t know how much was pre-planned and how much was improvised, though.

Or here’s an event I’ve related before in other threads: I was in a game ages ago (D&D3x 3pp AP, GURPS system). At one point, the adventure path wanted us to get a magic item that was being held in an intradimensional bank vault. The game assumed we would do a heist, or at least that was the impression I got. Instead we found the previous owner’s grave, hired a lawyer, and I cast the GURPS version of speak with dead to get legal permission to withdraw the item for our personal use. Thus, our choices caused us to bypass a huge number of encounters.

 

[pemerton]

Which would logically make it in the players'/PCs' best interests to try to avoid or bypass those tests when they can, wouldn't it?

Assuming that they're playing Burning Wheel, then no. The whole point of the game is to focus on tests that will resolve key moments of conflict/crisis.

I've posted the rules already, multiple times, so won't bother doing so again unless you're curious.

And aren't the players in BW or Torchbearer also trying to reach a finish line; to wit, the achievement of their characters' goals and beliefs?

That depends on the goal or belief.

For instance, "Elves are unstable and need grounding in reality" or "Aramina will need my protection" aren't goals to be achieved.

And even when it comes to goals, at present Fea-bella's player is deliberately choosing goals that Fea-bella probably can't achieve, as he wants the Fate for pursuing a goal rather than the Persona for realising a goal.

If the PCs are trying to gain entry to a castle and my notes (or the module) tell me there's five guards on the drawbridge you'd quite rightly call it a railroad were I to force the PCs into the presence of those guards without any choice in the matter.

Until you tell me much more than you have about what is going on in this example, I have no idea.

For instance, here's how I started my main TB2e campaign:

I had already decided on my way to the session to use the Tower of Stars as my scenario, but also - inspired by my Darkwood Forest experience - to open with a bandit encounter if any of the players built a talk-y PC. So when one built a skald, that settled that!

In the introductions phase we established that the PCs had met on the road, although Fea-bella and Telemere had once met in the Elfhome, while she and Golin had met at Jobe's tower. I read out the scenario backstory, and the players chose goals (Korvin: discover the truth about the Beholder of Fates; Telemere: discover if my brother came through here; Fea-bella: raid the tower for the secrets of the starts; Golin: raid the tower for its laboratory ingredients). Then I described the approach to the tower, where the PCs could see four rough-looking individuals sitting at the base of the basalt-scree slope up to the tower, one of them bandaging the feet of another.

That's not a railroad. That's just starting the campaign by telling the players where their PCs are and what they can see.

A bypassed encounter is just that.

Just what? Where does the "encounter" exist if it never occurred?

 

[pemerton]

Who has been even a little coy about this? We've been talking for thousands of posts about our processes that involve keyed maps and timelines. @robertsconley alone has posted dozens of keyed maps.

Edit: Although I note that elsewhere you seem to be implying that with map and key prep you also have a pre-designed resolution, which I find it very hard to believe you have taken in good faith from anything anyone in this thread has ever actually said.

I posted curiosity about the idea of "bypassing an encounter" - not to you or @robeersconley, by the way - and instead of getting an explanation in terms of GM notes, GM prep, timelines, default events etc (which I'm still conjecturing) get berated for asking the question!

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton talks about scene framing; that's really all setting creation is, just on a larger scale. In both cases, once the scene/setting is presented, we are handing things over to the players to actually drive play.

For what it's worth, I think setting creation and scene framing are pretty different things.

For instance, setting creation is normally regarded as a type of prep. Whereas framing a scene is a component of actual play at the table.

 

[Faolyn]

For instance, here's how I started my main TB2e campaign:
That's not a railroad. That's just starting the campaign by telling the players where their PCs are and what they can see.

What would happen if the PCs decided to go somewhere else and not attempt to enter the tower and confront those rough individuals?

If the game’s over, that’s a railroad. Even if the players agreed to it ahead of time.

If you shrug and come up with something else, then it’s (a) not a railroad and (b) the PCs bypassed that encounter.

Just what? Where does the "encounter" exist if it never occurred?

On paper or in the GM’s mind, obviously. Where would the tower and rough individuals go if the PCs decided to do something else?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Don't want to play them? Cool.
Don't want them to exist when so many games require a set of play-style that is similar to yours? Not so cool.

That's basically asking people like me to be permanent second-class citizens in this space? When 5th Edition D&D leaves no room for people like me to play it why should Apocalypse World accommodate mainstream playstyles? Why should I be denied games designed for the stuff I want so everything can be made for you, even the stuff meant for me?

You have your space, your games, that are just yours. Why can't we have the same without being treated interlopers? Why must your norms pervade the entire hobby?

I don't recall anywhere in what I've written that I want games I don't like to not exist. Claiming otherwise is a bad faith post.

 

[Faolyn]

I posted curiosity about the idea of "bypassing an encounter" - not to you or @robeersconley, by the way - and instead of getting an explanation in terms of GM notes, GM prep, timelines, default events etc (which I'm still conjecturing) get berated for asking the question!

Because we find it hard to believe that someone who has been gaming for more than a couple of years like you have doesn’t understand this. It points to either extreme and deliberate ignorance on your part because you’ve made no effort to learn how other games work, and this is regular English, not game terms you might not know, or you’re trying to set people up for an “aha, my game is better!” moment, especially since you started this tangent by claiming your game was more empowering because you have to set up encounters in a specific way that was different from how @robertsconley set up his.