I described your excerpts as producing something very similar to living sandbox play. You seem to now be shifting to talking about the game as a whole and not just the play excerpts. Those are 2 different things to discuss, yes?
I am talking about
play. You seem to be talking only about
the fiction produced.
Knowing what fiction resulted from a session of RPG play tells us almost nothing about what the play experience was like. What makes this obvious is that any given bit of fiction could be produced by the GM just railroading the players through it.
My play reports
don't just state the fiction. They set out the processes of play. And I think it's fairly clear how these differ from a living sandbox. The most important difference, for present purposes, is that the GM does not extrapolate situations (both their framing, and what is at stake) from pre-authored setting/backstory; and does not generate consequences by naturalistic extrapolation.
And thus the story unfolds.
Tirga wants to avenge his brothers death. He's been searching for information about the killer all his life. He's turned to adventuring hoping to leverage his associations in that line of work to gain favor with whoever knows or has the power to find out who killed his brother. So far it's all been dead ends, but there might be a chance now. Herkes has approached him talking of a brewing faction war and asking for him to aid his faction in a raid on their adversaries supplies. Tirga sees the opportunity here as an event as world changing as a faction war can loosen the lips of those that hold information in exchange for some services. He tells Herkes he's willing to help but only for the identity of his brothers killer. This time Herkes agrees to part with the information after the job is complete. Tirga goes on the raid has success (probably a whole session goes into planning and executing this raid). He learns the identity of his brothers killer. (*made up excerpt for illustration).
And this is Exhibit A. This is fiction, but tells us nothing about play. Who established that Tirga's brother died? Is the "searching all his life" and the "so far it's all been dead ends" something that has been played, or is it just pre-play background? Who established Tirga's associations? Who decides that Herkes approaches Tirga? That there is a brewing faction war? Who decides the information that Herkes imparts after the successful raid?
And as well as all those "who" questions, there are corresponding "how" questions. For instance, is the information about who the killer is read from notes? Made up via a random roll? A consequence following from a check - and if so, a failed or a successful check?
Hooks as you call them only work if players get what they want out of them. Hooks drive play toward the player achieving his goals (or at least can). Whereas you seem to call them hooks as if they are a form of railroading or gentleman's agreement where the goal of your backstory is simply to provide the GM with potential adventuring hooks so that your PC fictionally has a reason to get aboard the railroad (or linear story if we are being nicer to that playstyle).
I don't fully follow this.
The way I have referred to player-authored hooks is that they give the GM material to use in framing, and in consequence narration. They aren't connected to "railroading" - you can see the way it works in the example of play with Thurgon meeting Rufus. The key "fork-in-the-road" moments are the Circles check (if that had failed, it might have been an angrier Rufus; or maybe "the master", whoever that is!); and Thurgon's Command check (if that had succeeded, then Rufus would probably have been brought over to Thurgon's cause, rather than slinking off cowed and resentful).
I think the backstory first really is a call out to map and key play. At least that's the platonic ideal of it as presented here. Maybe we should start here, do you believe any D&D play isn't map and key play? Because if not that underlying idea is shaping this whole discussion and it needs explicitly talked about if so.
Map-and-key is probably the most paradigmatic example of backstory first. It's not the only one.
Living sandbox is also backstory first: the central method of framing is to
extrapolate from the GM's setting material to work out what would be happening here-and-now. And reference to that material is an important input into action resolution: for instance, it's by reference to that material that the GM decides that the faction will provide information to the PC if the PC first raids the outpost.
(I mean, I guess a GM could just be making that all up as they go along rather than working from notes. But in that case, what possible reason does the GM have to defer engagement with the player's preferred concern - the hunt for the killer - and instead send play on a detour via the outpost?)
Duel of wits is just a persuasion check. At the core that's all it is.
This is obviously wrong!
If persuasion checks happened anytime the players desired then they would be essentially the same. But 5e does have one bit of mechanics that's different and that's the mechanic that the GM decides whether to have such a check in the first place.
Here we start to see one way in which it's wrong - in D&D the player doesn't have the power to call for a Persuasion check.
there's nothing stopping a GM in D&D from saying, I'll have my NPC's be potentially persuadable to any 'good faith', 'genre appropriate' and 'preestablished fiction' appropriate attempt. Excludes things like using Persuasion to get the King to give non-noble you his crown.
This will quickly lead to a second difference - what are the
stakes for a persuasion check? What happens to the PC, and hence the player, if it fails?
Are there profound differences of play between story now games?
<snip>
If so why doesn't your explanation care about these profound differences?
@Manbearcat has already posted a bit about this. In this thread I've talked about differences between PbtA ("if you do it, you do it") and BW ("intent and task"). I've talked about "vanilla narrativism" using AD&D and RM. I've given examples of non-backstory-first exploration-rather-than-story-now play (from 4e and Classic Traveller play).
Your post prompted me to go back and find some of my older posts (2013-14) comparing social skill challenges to Duel of Wits resolution:
I enjoyed the review. I have a copy of this module [UK1] but have never run it, and suspect I have not even read it all the way through.
In your review you say, I think correctly, that "the structures known to the designers" weren't up to the demands of this adventure. But I would want to add: I don't think that traditional D&D has action resolution mechanics that are up to those demands either. Without thinking it through fully, it seems like an adventure that would benefit from a skill challenge or Duel of Wits (from Burning Wheel) framework whereby, in the course of negotiation, players can find their PCs burdened with obligations that they are not mechanically free to ignore.
What is an appropriate result if there are 0 failures? 1 failure? 2 failures? All count as a successful result so the king's mind is changed, but what level of consequence is appropriate for the accumulated failures?
<snip>
On the reverse side, what happens if the PCs fail, but have achieved 5 successes? Should there be a difference compared to if they failed to achieve any successes at all?
The assumption (I think) is that this will be determined on an ad hoc basis from challenge to challenge. For instance, sometimes each failure causes damage/HS loss. But not always. In a social situation it is likely that each success will bring forth something of significance (eg information, or an offer or a threat). These changes in the fiction are what they are regardless of whether the challenge is a success.
In practice I find this can produce something like the compromise results of a BW Duel of Wits.
Skill challenges are also a distinctive approach to complex scene resolution, which have weaknesses compared to some others (in particular, the absence of active opposition can create framing challenges for the GM) but strengths also (once the GM overcomes the framing challenges, skill challenges are less vulnerable to a dropping out of fictional positioning than simple opposed-check systems like HeroWars/Quest extended contests or the BW Duel of Wits).
a skill challenge has no active opposition; hence, the opposition has to come from the GM's narration. Because the fictional situation will be changed by the consequences of the players' successful checks, this means that - at least in a challenge of complexity greater than 1 or 2 - some of that GM narration of opposition is going to have to build on that new fictional situation created by those successful checks.
A simple example: the PCs are caught in a rockslide. One player makes an Athletics check to have his/her PC jump up onto a sheltered ledge: success! But now the PC is stuck on a ledge behind a wall of rocks, and so has to find a way out. (STR for pushing, Acro for squeezing or Perception to find a secret door Tintin-style are the options that come immediately to my mind.) I think it was the failure to factor in these sorts of changes in fictional situation that led to some of the WotC examples seeming so static, and amounting to nothing but a series of dice rolls.
Now, to what extent can goals crystallise or even change over the course of a skill challenge? (Or similar complex conflict resolution system.) I suspect that views and approaches differ. In Burning Wheel, for instance, the stakes in a Duel of Wits are set up front, and can't be changed part way through, at least as the rules are written. For my own part, in lengthy social skill challenges in 4e, I typically allow the first part of the challenge to help set the scene in more detail and help focus the action on the ultimate stakes, and then use the final few checks to hone in on those stakes and see how they end up being resolved. I like the pacing effects of this approach, especially because a skill challenge (unlike, say, a DoW in BW) does not have active opposition, and so this sort of "firming up" of the goals and stakes can be a substitute for active opposition in contributing to drama and a sense of rising tension.
These bring out the importance of stakes-for-failure. And the last couple of posts are from a thread that has a lot that is interesting i the context of this thread - including a discussion of "living sandbox" methods used to resolve an attempt by the PCs to have a NPC chamberlain obtain an audience for them with the king. The difference from a "situation first" approach - in particular, the use of backstory - comes through clearly in those posts.
Now if you're saying that 5e D&D might be used to run a "situation first" rather than "backstory first" game, then I take it you're agreeing with what I posted way upthread:
I don't agree. I've run AD&D quite successfully using shared backstory authority (especially in PC build, but also the GM taking suggestions from players on the way through) and GM authority over situation/scene-framing.
I don't see why 5e D&D couldn't be run the same way if a group wanted to do so.
But this wouldn't be "living sandbox" as I understand it, because the preeminent role of GM setting/backstory material would be dropped.
In reviewing that old fighter-vs-spellcaster thread, I also came across this:
This is related to my discussion, upthread, of Rolemaster PC sheets. The best way for the player of the character with only Duping and Lie Perception as social skills to impact a social scene via his PC is to dissimulate while "reading" his target. The best way for the player of the character with only Leadership as a strong social skill to impact the same scene is to try and take charge. The best way for the player of the character with decent Amiability to impact the same scene is to be friendly, and evince a readiness to give and take. The mechanics encourage the players, in playing their PCs so as to impact the scene, to give expression to distinctive personalities.
It also relates to my comments upthread about 4e dwarves. The fact that a 4e dwarf has resistance to forced movement and gets saves against being knocked prone (and hence potentially overrun) gives the player of a dwarf a mechanical incentive to try and impact the situation by holding the line. Which then gives expression to the well-known trope of dwarves as steadfast and resolute.
<snip>
You can see another instance if you look at the PC sheet I posted. The character has strong Intimidate and Diplomacy but comparatively weak Insight. He is overbearing but lacks empathy and understanding of the motives, particularly the more subtle motives, of others. For that to come out in play, all I have to do is play him off the sheet!, deploying the resources it gives me. And that is a deliberate design choice on my part in building this character - I think issues of nobility vs humility are at the core of playing a paladin (they're not all that's at that core, but they're definitely there).
It's interesting for two reasons:
(1) First, it shows how PC build techniques that have their origins in rules-heavy "simulationist" RPGing (RM, Champions and the like) can be adapted for more character-driven, "story now" play.
(2) It helps us see how PC build rules intersect with the relationship between "story now" and "neotrad" RPGing. This is something that
@Campbell in particular posts about very passionately! The more the expression of character is "locked in" and unchanging, the less we get of intense character development play, and the more we get predetermined character arc play. 4e allows for the former via re-training. And I can't imagine I'm the only person ever to have had a PC change race, or Paragon Path, during play, even though the retraining rules don't technically allow for that. 4e facilitates this because of its symmetry/uniformity of PC build, and the relative lack of dependence of idiosyncrasies of PC build on the details of play.
In RM and BW, there is less of the "retraining" style of change - ie substituting equivalent build elements - though BW does have rules for voting traits on and off, that's quite a bit different. But both allow the player to shape the character in new ways in response to the way play is unfolding - RM via skill development choices, and BW via checks to open new skills or advance existing one.
There is less opportunity to do this in AD&D, which is one of the hurdles that situation-first story-now AD&D play will have to get over.
I suspect that 5e is closer to AD&D than to 4e or RM in this particular respect, but don't know it well enough to make a super-confident judgement.
