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Respect Mah Authoritah: Thoughts on DM and Player Authority in 5e
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8436595" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I don't know. What you're describing above is <em>some fiction</em> - ie there are things happening and then these people (the PCs) stick their bibs in and some different things happen.</p><p></p><p>I don't know of many RPGs that don't produce that sort of fiction. The DL modules produce that sort of fiction - there is a war/invasion going on and the PCs discover and intervene to stop it and on the way through discover people and places - but I can't imagine that the DL modules count as any sort of sandbox.</p><p></p><p>I've always understood a "sandbox" to be a description of <em>a process of play, </em>not just of some fiction. What is the process of play in a "living sandbox"? My best guess is that it is a version of what I described: the GM has notes about people and places, with situations latent in them, and depending on what actions the players declare that "move" their PCs through the sandbox, various situations are "activated".</p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, I don't know because you haven't told me how a "living sandbox" as you are envisaging it actually works. But my guess would be that the "world that lives" is something the GM is writing up and imagining in their notes. And that a lot of action resolution is resolved by reference to those notes. Which would be <em>backstory first</em>. <em>Situation </em>would be next, as this is what occurs when the players have their PCs engage the backstory in such a way as to enliven latent situations. Character would seem to be last, given that the backstory and those latent situations are established independently by the GM.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Perhaps. I think it plays a very small role in ToH or White Plume Mountain.</p><p></p><p>What is more interesting is <em>what is the point of the improvisation?</em> And <em>what principles govern it? </em>I gave an example of the graffiti under the table where the point is <em>to give a non-boring payoff for the players' action declaration "We look under the table"</em> and the main principle is <em>don't introduce anything that will be misleading or confusing relative to the prepared notes</em>. The upshot of (1) and (2) is a bit of colour. In No Myth play, the point of improvisation is generally <em>to drive play forward </em>by engaging players' evinced priorities/goals/aspirations for their PCs, and the principles are things like <em>go where the action is</em>, <em>apply pressure</em>, honour success and failure, and in 4e at least <em>say 'yes' or roll the dice.</em></p><p></p><p></p><p>What style?</p><p></p><p>The first encounter I ran which mixed combat and non-combat was for 1st level PCs in my second session of 4e GMing, in Jan or early Feb 2009. I had the 3 core books and Adventurer's Vault.</p><p></p><p>What I said is that "My view is that 4e is at its mechanically weakest (which is not to say that it is any weaker than any other version of D&D, and I think clearly stronger than AD&D or 3E in this respect) when combat and non-combat intersect". That does not mean it can't be done. It's stronger than any other published version of D&D that I'm familiar with (I can't comment on 5e, though I would have my doubts about it), and I think most posters on ENworld would assert that they support mixing combat and non-combat "out of the box".</p><p></p><p></p><p>[USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] and I have been crystal-clear that 4e rests on a premise of GM authority over scene-framing. And we've talked about the principles that govern that: player-authored quests, player-evinced dramatic/thematic concerns, etc. In my 4e game, at PC gen, I issued two non-canonical but hardly revolutionary instructions: (1) please tell us something/someone that your character is loyal to; (2) please tell us what reason your PC has to be ready to fight goblins.</p><p></p><p>This is the standard approach to scene-framed, "story now" play.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8436595, member: 42582"] I don't know. What you're describing above is [I]some fiction[/I] - ie there are things happening and then these people (the PCs) stick their bibs in and some different things happen. I don't know of many RPGs that don't produce that sort of fiction. The DL modules produce that sort of fiction - there is a war/invasion going on and the PCs discover and intervene to stop it and on the way through discover people and places - but I can't imagine that the DL modules count as any sort of sandbox. I've always understood a "sandbox" to be a description of [I]a process of play, [/I]not just of some fiction. What is the process of play in a "living sandbox"? My best guess is that it is a version of what I described: the GM has notes about people and places, with situations latent in them, and depending on what actions the players declare that "move" their PCs through the sandbox, various situations are "activated". Again, I don't know because you haven't told me how a "living sandbox" as you are envisaging it actually works. But my guess would be that the "world that lives" is something the GM is writing up and imagining in their notes. And that a lot of action resolution is resolved by reference to those notes. Which would be [I]backstory first[/I]. [I]Situation [/I]would be next, as this is what occurs when the players have their PCs engage the backstory in such a way as to enliven latent situations. Character would seem to be last, given that the backstory and those latent situations are established independently by the GM. Perhaps. I think it plays a very small role in ToH or White Plume Mountain. What is more interesting is [I]what is the point of the improvisation?[/I] And [I]what principles govern it? [/I]I gave an example of the graffiti under the table where the point is [I]to give a non-boring payoff for the players' action declaration "We look under the table"[/I] and the main principle is [I]don't introduce anything that will be misleading or confusing relative to the prepared notes[/I]. The upshot of (1) and (2) is a bit of colour. In No Myth play, the point of improvisation is generally [I]to drive play forward [/I]by engaging players' evinced priorities/goals/aspirations for their PCs, and the principles are things like [I]go where the action is[/I], [I]apply pressure[/I], honour success and failure, and in 4e at least [I]say 'yes' or roll the dice.[/I] What style? The first encounter I ran which mixed combat and non-combat was for 1st level PCs in my second session of 4e GMing, in Jan or early Feb 2009. I had the 3 core books and Adventurer's Vault. What I said is that "My view is that 4e is at its mechanically weakest (which is not to say that it is any weaker than any other version of D&D, and I think clearly stronger than AD&D or 3E in this respect) when combat and non-combat intersect". That does not mean it can't be done. It's stronger than any other published version of D&D that I'm familiar with (I can't comment on 5e, though I would have my doubts about it), and I think most posters on ENworld would assert that they support mixing combat and non-combat "out of the box". [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] and I have been crystal-clear that 4e rests on a premise of GM authority over scene-framing. And we've talked about the principles that govern that: player-authored quests, player-evinced dramatic/thematic concerns, etc. In my 4e game, at PC gen, I issued two non-canonical but hardly revolutionary instructions: (1) please tell us something/someone that your character is loyal to; (2) please tell us what reason your PC has to be ready to fight goblins. This is the standard approach to scene-framed, "story now" play. [/QUOTE]
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