Should the DM accommodate characters, or characters accommodate DMs?

[Ariosto]

It seems our experience varies or at least our definition of a sandbox variers.

Well, seeing as how I accept your definition (without knowing what the heck it is), I reckon we've got different experiences. (If I had referred to my campaign as a "sandbox", then you would have been "maintaining" that I was either deluded or a liar about my own experience.)

So, I'm not pulling this out of thin air.

The problem is that what you have is insufficient to assess your claim.

hours in preparation for 4E one-shots: unknown
return on investment: 3 sessions
"9 months" (how many hours?) preparation for a campaign
return on investment (in how many sessions over how many years?) = unknown (not even started)

I've seen a lot of guys spend 9 weeks, then 9 months, then 9 years with their "campaigns not ready yet". One may still be "working on it" after 20 years without having run a single session.

How much time you spend not campaigning doesn't say a whole lot about the subject of actually managing a campaign.

The great DMs I have known might disagree over just how small to start, but they would be unanimous about starting sooner rather than later. At worst, a good game tomorrow beats a great game "someday". More probably, the former is the first step toward the latter.

 

[The Shaman]

KidSnide, I didn’t have a lot of time to post last night, so let me expand a bit on my earlier answer. Thank you for including the example from your campaign; that helped me understand better what you’re asking.

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.

There’s no way I can detail every hovel, town, and port in a setting, so I detail some of the major areas and use my knowledge of the setting to improvise the rest as needed. I make no specific effort to tailor my improvisation toward the adventurers; it’s up to the players to take what they find and make something of it.

I’m going to take your example of the adventurer’s traveling to Huzzuz and translate it into something from my own campaign setting. Let’s say that, for whatever reason, the adventurers are part of the royal entourage of the newly married Queen of England, Henriette Marie, and her brother, Gaston, the duc d’Anjou, traveling from Paris to Boulogne where the new queen will depart for her new home.

I’ve spent a fair amount of effort detailing Paris, but I have only a couple of scattered notes on Boulogne. Boulogne itself is divided into the High Town, which is the old medieval walled city, and Low Town, which is the quayside community along the river Liane. There’s also an inn known as the "Sword of Henri the Great."

In terms of general knowledge of the setting, Boulogne is one of the French Channel ports, and there are many features in common between Boulogne, Calais, Rouen, Honfleur, and others. All of the ports are home to fishermen, many of whom travel as far as New France for their catch. The ports are also part of the network of commerce in the North and Baltic Seas; each town will include a variety of foreign traders, mostly English, Dutch, Flemish, and Danish, with the occasional Venetian or Hansa merchant as well. Pirates shelter in the French Channel ports, paying large bribes to the city father and royal governors to do so, and they often become privateers when France goes to war; they in turn are stalked by privateers from other countries. As sailors tend to come from many different countries, all of the port communities tend to be a polyglot mix, and as with most of these communities, crime is a problem, from street gangs to smugglers. Foreign spies abound, watching pirates, merchants, and the tiny French royal fleet. The local nobility rules the different ports as aldermen and magistrates, often in conjunction with a royal governor; most royal officials are despised by the local bourgeoisie as greedy and corrupt. However, a royal visit, such as that of the new Queen of England and the prince who is first in line for the throne should Louis Treize die, is a big deal; there will be attempts to curry favor with the queen, the duke, and the swarm of French and English dignitaries and courtiers who make up the royal entourage.

So I have an idea of what to expect in Boulogne, based on my background knowledge of the Channel ports. Next I’ll pull out the random encounter tables in the core rules, roll up a number of generic encounters and skin them with the details I know for the Channel port communities. A generic rogue or rowdy might become pirates or smugglers, a generic noble a member of the local aristocracy or a courtier traveling with the royal entourage, a bureaucrat a hated royal tax collector or the Admiralty lieutenant for the port. Each gets an agenda; the smugglers want to avoid contact with anyone as they prepare to smuggle silk to England, the local alderman is looking for someone to make an introduction to M. de Villeauxclercs, the foreign minister, and so on and so on.

And that’s it. The adventurers may make an enemy of a pirate captain or friends with a crew of smugglers. They may gain an ally among the local gentry, or earn the enmity of a magistrate. Who they contact may lead to other encounters; for example, making an ally of a pirate might earn the adventurers attention from a Flemish merchant spying for the Spanish.

To summarize, I take what I know of the setting and the genre, generate random-based encounters, and fit them to the time, place, and circumstances. My focus is on what makes sense in terms of the setting rather than what the adventurers are interested in, because it is up to the adventurers to make use of the setting, not for me to make the setting useful to them. The players and their characters drive the game forward, not me.

 

[Haltherrion]

How much time you spend not campaigning doesn't say a whole lot about the subject of actually managing a campaign.

The great DMs I have known might disagree over just how small to start, but they would be unanimous about starting sooner rather than later. At worst, a good game tomorrow beats a great game "someday". More probably, the former is the first step toward the latter.

Seeing as the prep time overlapped with completion of the last campaign and the current test sessions allowed our painter, the ref in the last campaign to complete the figures he is preparing for this campaign, the whole thing was planned rather nicely I'd venture (and in collaboration with the previous ref; it wasn't an attempt to supercede him).

Not really sure why the crunchy data is necessary but if it helps:

Hours spent on new campaign: not sure but you can get a feel for the amount of content at the link below. That is to the player visible information but is 80% of it.
Hours spent on session prep: 2 hours to 10 hours depending on the session. Some stole material from previous prep.

Based on previous experience, this campaign will last 18 to 30 months. We've talked about using the setting for future campaigns but probably different time periods so most of it would have to be recaptured for the new campaign.

But the point of my earlier post is that the session prep time for me is about the same. The campaign setting prep time is more for a setting where the players drive more of the campaign and less for a setting where the ref drives it for the simple reason that if the ref controls content he has a better idea of what he needs to prepare in the setting and the players have less need to know all the little details since they won't likely use them. Conversely with the players in the drivers seat, to be fair to the players, there needs to be a bigger road; they need the extra detail to make informed decisions on where to go.

I don't think I'm stating anything revolutionary. When the ref drives he can keep the game on a narrow path, the one he has prepared. When the players drive, if you really want to give them freedom, you need to cover more paths as well as give them more information to make decisions. Of course, there are degrees in between. It isn't black and white.

 

[The Shaman]

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.

The "ref driving story" side has more than enough advocates, judging from about twenty-five years of adventure and game design.

Story-driven games are hardly the underdog.

 

[Haltherrion]

The "ref driving story" side has more than enough advocates, judging from about twenty-five years of adventure and game design.

Story-driven games are hardly the underdog.

Perhaps in the land of modules but less so on the forums.

In any case, my motivations have more to do with my own experience, where I started strongly on the sandbox side and came to realize that at least in my case, I could do better with more ref involvment. When I see people post things like:

Fulfilling the adventurers' goals is the players' business, not mine. They set their goals, and it's up to them to find the means of achieving them.

I'm inclined to chime in not to knock your method of doing it but to remind other refs that there are other ways to approach it as well and they are just as legitimate. Not more legitimate but also not less legitimate.

I'm sure most are well aware of that but I remember back to my younger days and had I read your comment at a certain time it might have kept me longer on what turned out for me to be a less productive path.

 

[The Shaman]

Perhaps in the land of modules but less so on the forums.

More gamers are exposed to the "land of modules," and more recently of adventure paths, than they are gaming forums. Modules and APs are where many if not most gamers learn how to run their games.

I'm inclined to chime in not to knock your method of doing it but to remind other refs that there are other ways to approach it as well and they are just as legitimate. Not more legitimate but also not less legitimate.

Just to be clear, nowhere have I said that my preference is more legitimate, better, more valid, or preferable to anyone but me. To be honest, I'm not sure why you feel the need to refute an argument that isn't being made. This thread has clearly offered differing points of view from all along the spectrum of gamers.

One good ref can drive a story but a group needs several fully engaged players to drive a story in my experience.

When did expecting players to be at least as engaged in the game as the referee cease to be the norm?

I had a lengthy back-and-forth with Barastrondo recently over something very near to this. Some referees seem to have the attitude that the players must be guided to have fun, that they can't be expected to figure out what's fun for themselves and pursue that in the course of playing the game. It's an attitude I find both puzzling and self-fulfilling/-defeating.

 

[Ariosto]

But the point of my earlier post is that the session prep time for me is about the same.

Do you mean that you expect to spend 2 to 10 hours per session in addition to your months of preparation?

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

Your "true sandbox" is definitely not the only alternative to your story driven game. Neither is it, in my experience, normative. No advice I recall having received, or would ever give, about playing Dungeons & Dragons, would suggest such a labor-intensive scheme.

It is, I am sure, a splendid thing -- just not the common thing. The notion that it is the only way to build an old-style campaign does not hold water because it is not in fact the way the designers and early players of the game employed and described.

Two key ingredients that seem to figure much less prominently in your model are organic growth and improvisation. You are approaching the game more as object (body of data), relative to the emphasis on it as process.

 

[Ariosto]

I agree with The Shaman on the influence of modules and adventure paths. The presentation of the game, right down to the design of new "core systems", has pretty well shifted its center of gravity.

That is probably for sound reasons, I think, at least on the commercial basis of concern to the people responsible for such products. Their responsibility is in part to be more responsive to certain segments of the public, not necessarily those well represented by myself, or The Shaman -- or marcq!

Should the DM accommodate characters, or characters accommodate DMs?

As a practical matter, it appears to me that good (or even poor?) prospective DMs are in shorter supply than good players. (The usual demand is for more of the latter as well, not "2 DMs for every player", but I think you get my drift.)

So, I think a DM should do whatever he or she does best. For some, that may be "accommodating characters"; for others, maybe some other approach.

If I don't like That DM's game, then I can find another -- or start my own. Someone who has never been in that position might find that the experience of running a campaign and dealing with players broadens one's mind when it comes again to being a player dealing with a DM.

 

[Ariosto]

It's an attitude I find both puzzling and self-fulfilling/-defeating.

The target of such concerns is a different demographic of players than what might be par for your course, perhaps especially if (like me) you are of a certain age.

I think that notions about "kids today" or "lifestyles today" can indeed be to an extent self-fulfilling -- in a feedback loop of selectively both attracting and encouraging certain tendencies.

On the other hand, there can also be grains of truth in the fashionable stereotypes. Even late-1980s TSR was a world away from the company that published Cavaliers and Roundheads, Star Probe and Legions of the Petal Throne. WotC is in another galaxy; Hasbro is another galaxy!

Neither players who are keen on "finding their own fun" nor judges who delight in building settings from scratch over years are necessarily very lucrative as customers. Certainly the 'rules-light' approach is not a big profit driver for a rules publisher -- unless one can sell many different games, which of course calls for a different kind (or different kinds) of creativity.

 

[Haltherrion]

When did expecting players to be at least as engaged in the game as the referee cease to be the norm?

I had a lengthy back-and-forth with Barastrondo recently over something very near to this. Some referees seem to have the attitude that the players must be guided to have fun, that they can't be expected to figure out what's fun for themselves and pursue that in the course of playing the game. It's an attitude I find both puzzling and self-fulfilling/-defeating.

It varies by players but it has been my experience for some time. I can ignore, keep looking for new players, or adapt to it. I did ignore it early on and it led to less entertaining games. I like my gaming group, they are good friends so that leaves working with what I have.

As for referee attitude, one could puzzle at all styles of refereeing. Where, for instance, does it say the referee cannot help drive the story? Why leave the success of something you, the referee, might spend hours of out of game time on entirely in the hands of the players when with a little judicious intervention you can turn your game from a pleasant way to pass the time with perhaps occasional boring stretches when the players are casting about for something to do to a memorable campaign that players find as entertaining as their other weekend entertainment choices?

It's easy enough to toss stones at different styles. Instead, I advocate refs be open about the spectruum of options and determine what works best for their current campaign concept and game group. It isn't one style-fits-all, different situations can call for different responses.