Should the DM accommodate characters, or characters accommodate DMs?

[Ariosto]

And I'll ask a question of The Shaman and Ariosto, purely out of curiosity, when you build what let's call an "adventure-setting" (i.e. a homebrew equivalent of Vault or Borderlands) do you take the PCs and their goals into account?

No. Basically, "the PCs and their goals" do not exist.

Sometimes that is at the moment perfectly literal. Making up stuff can be fun even when I'm not running a campaign.

There certainly were PCs in the campaign in, e.g., 1979 when I drew up the first map of what was then called Kineford. Since then, many PCs with many (often conflicting) goals have come and gone, and their deeds have changed the place in ways that took no consideration at all of the characters who had yet to be "born".

 

[KidSnide]

So, provided your PCs are acting on good information, am I correct in concluding that you create/build/detail "adventure settings" that take the PC's goals into account, in as much as those adventure settings were chosen by the PCs because the PCs think it will provide a means to fulfill their goals?

I'm sorry, I'm not following the question. Perhaps you could give me an example?

Sorry, I didn't mean to be obtuse. In my campaign, the PCs usually go to a place in which I haven't run an adventure before. So, when I fill in all the details, those details are naturally focused towards what I think the PCs will be interested in. Sure, there are details that exist just because I think they would be there, but most of the serious work is focused on "actionable" material that I think the PCs might use. Naturally, this results in game design that is focused on the goals and objectives of the PCs.

To give an even more concrete example, my PCs are about to sail to Hiyal from Huzuz. Their objective is to hunt down a famous giant general who is hiding in the area and wants to free his people from the empire for whom my PCs work. Naturally, a lot of my Hiyal design is focused on where the giant general is hiding, what his plan is to escape, and the Hiyal locals who the PCs could influence in order to gain support at hunting down this dangerous (and potentially mutual) enemy.

I just wanted to know whether, in your more "sandboxy" game (please forgive the vague terminology), you designed material with the PC's objectives in mind? It seems to me that when PCs visit a territory that you haven't worked on before, it's only natural to focus your efforts on what you think the PCs will do.

No. Basically, "the PCs and their goals" do not exist. <snip>

There certainly were PCs in the campaign in, e.g., 1979 when I drew up the first map of what was then called Kineford. Since then, many PCs with many (often conflicting) goals have come and gone, and their deeds have changed the place in ways that took no consideration at all of the characters who had yet to be "born".

Ariosto, do you really have a campaign in which you don't have to invent new locations when the PCs go there? I find that totally amazing. I've run three campaigns in the same world since 1991 and most adventure locations are ones that no PC has ever been to before.

(To be fair, it didn't help that my PCs decided to blow up their planet in 2003. Ah, gray box Toril, how I knew thee...)

-KS

 

[The Shaman]

I just wanted to know whether, in your more "sandboxy" game (please forgive the vague terminology), you designed material with the PC's objectives in mind? It seems to me that when PCs visit a territory that you haven't worked on before, it's only natural to focus your efforts on what you think the PCs will do.

I don't try to anticipate the players or their characters nor do I tailor the setting to the adventurers' ambitions. My focus is maintaining a rich, diverse, internally consistent setting; it's up to the players to work the setting to their advantage.

 

[Ariosto]

Ariosto, do you really have a campaign in which you don't have to invent new locations when the PCs go there?

No, I do not "really" (??) have a campaign in which I don't have to invent new locations when the PCs go there. I don't write down a description of every garage, garden and garderobe in a city, for instance.

So, yes, the players' plan focuses my preparation for a session. It's generally not a matter of creating Erelhei-Cinlu from formless void, though. The PCs are unlikely to have a motivation for going Nowhere, even if it were to be found.

"In as much as those adventure settings were chosen by the PCs because the PCs think it will provide a means to fulfill their goals ..." there must be some "there" there already. "Provided my PCs are acting on good information ..." there is information, and something about which it is good.

In the real world, if someone chooses to go to San Francisco for a reason, what does that mean? One can make it mean something by design significantly different in a game, and that's a pretty popular way to go, with lots of examples. Making it mean something more similar is not especially tricky, because we have real life with lots of examples.

 

[Ariosto]

"What I think the PCs will do" is what the players have told me they will do.

Once upon a time, competition for DM time imposed a selection pressure in favor of better organized and more interesting adventures. Other demands being what they are in my circle, I do not expect to see that again in the near future.

That was good practice, though, and skilled players know that having a plan is prerequisite to having a successful plan in any case. Aimless wandering only fattens the Wandering Monsters. Waffling about wastes play time that is certainly not less precious for being much more rare nowadays!

It is in all of our interests to be as well prepared as possible for a scheduled game session.

 

[Haltherrion]

"What I think the PCs will do" is what the players have told me they will do.

...

That was good practice, though, and skilled players know that having a plan is prerequisite to having a successful plan in any case. Aimless wandering only fattens the Wandering Monsters. Waffling about wastes play time that is certainly not less precious for being much more rare nowadays!

It is in all of our interests to be as well prepared as possible for a scheduled game session.

Some decades ago, my games used to look more like this but I don't find it practical these days. It isn't because I don't like building sandboxes. But my views on the whole matter have shifted.

For starters, I view the whole thing more as a spectruum:

• one end of the spectruum a true andbox where the ref can create enough material ahead of time and ad lib neutrally for the rest that the ref is essentially providing a fantasy world simulation that the players interact with.
• the other end is a setting with only enough desribed to support a story driven by the referee. In the extreme case no player decisions matter but in likely workable cases, players can decide the little things but the basic unfolding of events is in the ref's hands.

I don't think anyone claims to truly do the first one but there are a number who tend strongly to that side. Over the years, I have drifted more to the middle and have played in other's games that are more towards the latter and yet are perfectly enjoyable and perhaps, more memorable.

It is my belief that there is actually nothing superior to one method over the other. You don't find too many arguing on the second end of the continuum but you do find plenty suggesting that the sandbox end is somehow superior.

I suggest each referee tries to understand his own abilities and interests (sandboxes can take a lot of out of game time, for instance which you had better enjoy) as well as the engagement level and interests of the players and work from there.

Success on the sandbox side of things is largely driven by player engagement I've found and one reason I have shifted to the middle over the years is that without me, the referee, providing more story and more goals, the players tend to wander aimlessly and have a less enjoyable time which, over the long run, means they have more mysterious scheduling conflicts, etc.

Are my players bad players? Well, as a group, they certainly don't put as much into the campaign as they did in other years, namely my distant college and high school days. Perhaps some of that is that my friends are less nerdy but I think the real reason is that they are now adults with a lot of other demands on their time and drawing up the castle plans to their PC's new character isn't top on their list of play-time activities.

Have my ref skills weakened? I suppose that's possible but I think it is more the opposite: with experience I have dissected campaigns past to see what works and what doesn't and tried to improve my own and my players' gaming experiences. To me, that means engaging more in the story creation side of things.

Typically for me, that means providing multiple plot seeds that the players can choose from. Not a lot, usually 2-3 (I am mortal afterall). Once they choose a plot, they certainly can take it places I haven't anticipated but the understanding among players and refs is that they stick to it unless they have good reason to depart from it. Why? Well, they will get prepared, well considered material from me if I know where they are going. If they go on a random tangent, they get ad libbed stuff. The former is usually memorable with plenty of surprises to engage the players. The latter is fun at the time but readily forgotten.

The nice thing about RPGs is that a wide range of styles can work. Specifically, you can still have a good skill ref, accomplished skilled players, without having to have a sandbox-ish world. There is nothing inherently superior about the sandbox.

 

[Ariosto]

You don't find too many arguing on the second end of the continuum but you do find plenty suggesting that the sandbox end is somehow superior.

I find "enough" arguing too damned obnoxiously that only fools, or wicked men, and mostly wicked fools, run old-style campaigns ... or else that no one ever really has, so there's just been a parade of liars, or self-deluding people, or deluded liars, ever since 1972.

They have so subverted the 'sandbox' neologism that I am not about to claim it as defining my Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Hell no.

In fact, it appears to me that the assumption that "telling the story" is the purpose is overwhelmingly taken for granted. People who even take the old approach seem very rare here, even if all of them were to "suggest that it is somehow superior".

Well, of course it is -- in just the 'how' that one appreciates enough to choose it. Preferences are different, but it does not follow that they are unfounded. The ultimate foundation is that people are different, to the point of being individually unique.

Likes and dislikes might be touchier subjects to those who have invested a lot (even literally, in dollars!) in the premise that there is in fact an objectively better game. That seems often to come along with some other baggage that creates paradox in rhetoric, if not deep cognitive dissonance.

sandboxes can take a lot of out of game time, for instance which you had better enjoy

If you mean that preparing my old-style D&D campaign as a persisting environment for players to explore somehow takes more work than creating one single-use scenario after another, then you are mistaken. My experience is in fact just the opposite.

Not that it's a big issue with a game that in neither case involves long "stat blocks" or other such "modern conveniences" that really do require a lot of time and energy (maybe even subscription to a computerized database?) to prepare.

The flip-side is that neither does it take so long to play through a "mechanics-heavy" situation such as a fight (and 4E-style "skill challenges" are just not on my menu at all) -- so players 'encounter' more per unit of play time.

without me, the referee, providing more story and more goals, the players tend to wander aimlessly and have a less enjoyable time

I wonder how much the problem of "lost" players has to do with the shift -- 'officially', at least as default, back in 2E AD&D -- to a points system that basically rewards wandering around getting into fights just for the heck of it.

Then there are the many DMs who disdain any system that actually lets players see and choose from risk-reward mixes. "You'll get what I give ya, and like it!" is one way to put it. More fashionable is, "You'll advance at the same rate no matter what".

So, yeah, when you throw out the convention -- used in every other popular game that comes to my mind -- of readily identified objectives ... maybe players are going to wonder what they're supposed to do to play the freaking game.

I don't see that problem in old D&D much more than in, e.g., Diplomacy.

Having a default "object of the game", even stereotyped "openings", to avoid "options paralysis" does not limit players to only those goals. Sure, scoring points and gaining levels is fun -- but it's not the only thing that someone might find fun.

In old D&D, levels don't really have much to do with the vast majority of things a person might want to do. Getting levels primarily makes it easier to do stuff that gains XP and thus further levels, but then you need to do harder and more stuff.

Particular "game mechanics" matter, and so does the bigger picture of the game.

 

[Haltherrion]

If you mean that preparing my old-style D&D campaign as a persisting environment for players to explore somehow takes more work than creating one single-use scenario after another, then you are mistaken. My experience is in fact just the opposite.

I mean preparing a true sandbox that allows players to roam where they will requires a detailed world setting, which I maintain does take more time than creating single-use scenarios. The single use scenario is created for a purpose, the wide-open world requires lots of material that may never get used.

Note that I didn't say I personally don't like doing that or that it is a waste of time. As it happens, I enjoy it quite a lot and I still do it at times.

But if a ref asks me about whether he should run a sandbox, as a prospective player, I'd warn him that if he wants me to invest effort in finding the interesting things to do in his world, he needs to have a well defined, broad world. That takes time. It also seems no more a superior method of play than one where the ref is more involved with the story creation.

 

[Ariosto]

I mean preparing a true sandbox ... which I maintain does take more time than creating single-use scenarios.

Well, since my experience is just the opposite, obviously my Dungeons & Dragons campaign is no "true sandbox".

Presumably Arneson's Blackmoor and Gygax's Greyhawk weren't either, as I followed their instructions. And Bledsaw's Wilderlands is also out, as I have followed his example.

You can choose to lay on whatever "requirements" you like. Anyone could play that same trick with your "story" approach, though!

the wide-open world requires lots of material that may never get used.

No. It accumulates lots of material that increasingly approaches inevitability of getting used -- and re-used! At least, that's how it works for me.

If I've got a 'railroad', then at least I hit each station once -- but I still need to lay new track for the next adventure. If I'm trimming branches from a decision tree, though, then I'm piling up dead wood.

 

[Haltherrion]

Well, since my experience is just the opposite, obviously my Dungeons & Dragons campaign is no "true sandbox".

....

You can choose to lay on whatever "requirements" you like. Anyone could play that same trick with your "story" approach, though!

It seems our experience varies or at least our definition of a sandbox variers. I've done both and am basing this on my own experience, including experience as recently as my last few gaming sessions.

In preparation for a new campaign, I have spent the last 5 months [edit: guess it is more like 9 months, how time flies] building up a new campaign world (I've always liked world building). On the sandbox <-> ref-sets-story spectruum the new campaign is more on the sandbox side although not hard so.

As the group is also transitioning to 4E, I have separately run 3 one-shot sessions with the 4th one tomorrow. I have spent far more time preparing the world for a game that hasn't even started yet than I have for any of these one-shot sessions and for those, being a ref that works from notes, I still have prepared various docs of 8 to 20 pages on each session (they include monster stat blocks so not all was personally generated).

So, I'm not pulling this out of thin air. If you have an established campaign setting or are using someone else's setting, then you can reduce some of that effort but that established setting represents a large amount of work I'll warrant. And you will need to invest a fair amount of time mastering the source material if you are using a published setting.

I'm not knocking a sandbox approach. I'm not knocking refs who leave more of the "story" to the players. I will confess an urge to counter-point posts when refs say "I leave it all to my players; I don't do story." Having played both sides of the spectruum, more extremely in my past, at least on the sandbox side, but still both sides of the middle now, I think the "ref driving story" side needs its advocates as well.

Campaigns where the referee intervenes to create the story can be very successful. I've run in and participated in both before. I do therefore assert based on my experience that such campaigns can be just as viable as more player driven games and to put it as a negative that player driven games are not therefore superior to ref driven games. I don't recall seeing that explicitly stated but I do see enough statements that strongly imply player-driven is better.

I don't make the converse claim that story driven campaigns are superior to player driven ones but to be honest, I think there are game groups where a story driven game would serve them better than a player driven game. One good ref can drive a story but a group needs several fully engaged players to drive a story in my experience. Obviously be sensitive to your players and back off if they want to take the reigns.

Again, what you do is up to you. I'd just like to see refs consider the full spectruum of options if they are at a point where they are mulling their own styles and games. Sandbox is not inherently better than other game styles.

Myself, I like variety, regularly make new settings and run both types of campaigns. And I do more setting definition for sandbox-ish campaigns and less for more story driven campaigns with about the same amount of pre-session prep so for me, sandbox means more work.