D&D General The Alexandrian’s Insights In a Nutshell [+]

[Malmuria]

But if you want them to discover something… if you include three ways for them to discover something precisely so that they don’t fail to discover it… then you want them to find it. Which means you want that for a reason… presumably so that they can engage in the next step of the scenario.

It isn’t bad advice, in and of itself. But I think it’s much more relevant to adventures that do have a plot. Mysteries or investigations. Call of Cthulhu and similar games benefit from this advice.

JA has connected these two ideas when he really shouldn’t have.

But they could still fail to find it? The GM doesn't have to railroad players if they can't make use of any of the clues. I see this advice as more about how to make dynamic situations than how to lead players down a pre-determined plot

 

[TheSword]

@TheSword Is critical discussion in scope (e.g., the discussion regarding a contradiction between “Don’t Prep Plots” and the “Three Clue Rule”)? I missed that this thread was meant to be a [+], but I don’t want to contribute to further derailment if it’s not.

Absolutely. Discussion of the points is great and we might identify the good stuff along the way.

I just don’t want to obfuscate those points with discussion about who he offends or who came up with ideas first. There are plenty of other threads discussing controversy.

 

[TheSword]

Both don’t-prep-plots, the three clue rule, and node based design all seem to have the same goal to my mind… to avoid brick walls that leave the players stumped or force the players down a single course of action.

I think folks saying they are contradictory are reading too much into it. DMs are allowed to plan situations in advance. You can expect the players to engage with with the broader adventure. To try and find the 500,000 gold dragons for instance.

Just don’t make it conditional on players identifying the single clue that leads them to to do X Y Z in the manner and order you expect.

 

[pemerton]

I get this in concept, but are hung up thinking if I do this or what the difference is with situations and encounters and plots.

<snip>

I guess I'm thinking that all of these words might just be the same.

I can't speak for The Alexandrian. But I would think that, normally, a situation is a problem in the fiction that confronts the PCs, and hence draws the PCs into the play of the game. An encounter would normally mean a situation in which the problem involves people/creatures/monsters.

A plot is normally a sequence of events that follow one from the other.

In RPGing, the most common way I'm aware of to prepare a plot is to prepare a series of situations/encounters that the PCs are to work their way through. Many module are like this.

I might have a tribe or orcs planning to attack the village. I plan out an encounter where they attack and their size and tactics. I plan on the PCs fighting, but guess it depends on them. I also plan on the orcs taking some prisoners and going back to a cave. I plan on the PCs going to save the villagers.

The plot of the adventure is to survive the attack and rescue the villagers before they are sacrificed. I have a few situations that the PCs walk into but they could also just not want to do any of it.

That sounds like you are preparing a plot: Orcs attack village; PCs fight Orcs; Orcs retreat to cave with prisoners; PCs go to cave to save prisoners from Orcs. In its general outline, this is similar to a lot of published modules/adventures.

When you say "it depends on them" or "the PC . . . could also just not want to do any of it", it further sounds like you are anticipating the players declaring actions for their PCs that do not conform to your plot. I'm not sure what you do then, or how this relates to your prep. Maybe it means the prep of the plot ends up being wasted? I'm not sure what your GMing methodology is in respect of this.

• Design situations not plots because then you don’t actually care what the PCs actually do; you just want to expose them to the situation so that they can begin interacting with it.

<snip>

• For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues.

Note the contradiction.

I am not seeing one, that is essentially saying plan what you put in front of the players (situation), but not how they 'solve' it (plot), as the players might well decide to handle the situation differently from what you had planned

Here's the contradiction: wanting the PCs to draw a conclusion is preparing a plot (which includes the event of the PCs drawing a certain conclusion). If you are only planning situations, you don't care what inferences the PCs (or the players) draw.

In addition: if the intended situation includes that the PCs understand a certain thing to be implied by other things, then include that in the framing of the situation. The "three clue rule" is all about illusionistic GMing, pretending that something is part of play and up to the players, when really it is the GM just feeding the players information.

I said he does not give advice to set up a situation in a way that has only one solution

I said nothing about this. The whole notion of a situation that has a solution is about preparing plots - namely, the plot is that the PCs "solve" the situation. I'm well aware that there is a whole school of RPGing that focuses on this sort of play; all I'm saying is that this approach contradicts the notion of preparing situations rather than plots. It is plots through-and-through.

I do not see running something other than a sandbox and not having a tight plot / railroad as a contradiction.

I said nothing about "tight plot". The quote I responded to used the term "plot".

Nor did I say anything about "sandboxes". Since at least 1989 (Greg Stafford's Prince Valiant RPG) it's been obvious that there are more approaches to GMing than Gygaxian/Blackmoorian "sandbox" and DL-style railroad.

Any adventure has clues that point towards other situations, even an open sandbox does that

You can choose to define "adventure" this way if you want to. In which case, I don't run adventures. As I said, these other techniques have been reasonably well known for some decades now.

I’ve written adventures using this structure. I think it’s fine for what it does, and I suspect I’m less down on it than @pemerton

That's probably true! Because it's really not my thing.

But anyway, my point about contradictions stands whether or not one is into The Alexandrian's "node based design" and similar sorts of methodologies. My understanding of your post is that you broadly agree with my diagnosis of contradiction, although you locate the diagnosis within a more thorough account of The Alexandrian's taxonomies, including his "blind spot".

 

[hawkeyefan]

But they could still fail to find it? The GM doesn't have to railroad players if they can't make use of any of the clues. I see this advice as more about how to make dynamic situations than how to lead players down a pre-determined plot

The three clue rule is designed specifically to keep the game moving per a determined manner.

A clue is connected to a specific mystery or problem to be solved.

Again, it’s not bad advice. I mean, there’s a reason it was first mentioned (I believe… correct me if I’m wrong) Trail of Cthulhu and is a staple of gumshoe games. It works well with mystery scenarios.

 

[pemerton]

a clue is just information, it is not an order for the players to do anything.

The PCs discovering a clue is an event. A pre-planned event like that is (an element of) a plot.

If you want that event to happen, you are prepping a plot.

A plot is this: The adventurers come to the town, they decide to investigate a missing child, they find the kidnapper, the kidnapper monologues and runs away. End of adventure.

What you should be preparing is the following: In this town, a girl has been kidnapped by (kidnapper name). (Notice here nothing requires action on the part of the PCs) The "three clue" process would be ensuring the PCs can work out who the kidnapper is and where the girl is being hidden by leaving at least 3 clues that will give you the answer.

None of that requires the DM to assume any action on the part of the PCs. The clues are clues to the setting, not to the plot.

Presumably the GM is assuming that the PCs will try and work out who the kidnapper is, and where the girl is being hidden. Otherwise this is all just a waste of time on the GM's part.

I agree with the initial framing of the second example, but once the PCs choose to investigate it, it ends up effectively being turned into the plot. That’s the whole point! Justin makes this clear in his essay. Adventures risk stalling out when there is only one way to reach the conclusion. He refers to this as a chokepoint. If there is only one way to find the kidnapper, then either the PCs have to get lucky, or the GM has to act overtly to make sure they can’t miss it. When you use multiple, then it avoids having that happen due to redundancy. It’s nice if the PCs can find every path to the conclusion, but it’s not required.

I think our disagreement (and I assume also @mamba’s) is one of feel. For most people, these feel different. While both lead to the same conclusion (finding the kidnapper), the play is not the same. In the first, the GM will probably need to act overtly to influence play. If not, then there’s always the possibility. While I think that’s fine if you signed up for it, I’m probably unusual in having that view. I know it tends to be wildly unpopular with a lot of people. In the second, the GM remains hands off after designing (or choosing) the scenario. That tends to feel better, and people like it more, because the GM can sit back and run the scenario without having to act overtly.

Note that I say most people. When one doesn’t want to play through a GM-authored scenario at all, then either approach can seem like the same thing regardless of any differences between the processes used to play it. From that perspective, you’re solving a problem the GM provided either way. The sort of play where that’s not desired is when the GM tends to function more as a facilitator in support of what the PCs need from the game.

I think I fall into your final paragraph, both as GM and player. I am not interested in working through a GM-authored scenario - what I would normally call a plot - whether by way of one clue, or three. The GM setting up the plot so that the PCs can learn about the kidnapper from a confession, from the tyre-tracks at the site of the kidnapping, or from the extra food that has been delivered to the kidnapper's house doesn't make it not be a plot set up by the GM.

As you say, diluting the chokepoint by way of 3 clues may change certain features of play - the GM has deployed their authorship in advance, rather than during the moment of adjudication. But it is still, as you also say, a GM-authored scenario.

You cannot really run a game and not give any clues, it then is up to the players to decide what to do with them

It is - by definition, I would say - not possible to run a RPG with a reasonably conventional split of GM and player roles, without the GM providing information to the players.

But it is quite possible to run a RPG in which the GM does not give clues in the sense if pointers to established/prepared-but-currently-secret elements of the fiction. I know, because I do this all the time. The best know account of how to do this has been described upthread by @AbdulAlhzared - it is found in Apocalypse World, and then picked up in other RPGs like Dungeon World.

My own approach is more heavily influenced by Burning Wheel, but that's by-the-by. For present purposes, the two approaches are not wildly different. They certainly do not have any room for, let alone need for, the "three clue rule".

 

[Manbearcat]

Basically "clues" refer to players working out the state of the world (ie, who killed the king, who stole the pies, etc) rather than what you want them to do (investigate the murder of the king, investigate the theft of the pies).

If the GM has pre-authored a “state of the world” and is using one, two, three (whatever number) clues to strategically mainline that pre-authored “state of the world” onto play, then the GM has prepped plot, not just situation.

I’m running The Between right now for @Campbell , @hawkeyefan , and a third player. There have been 5 Threats (mysteries) resolved, there are 3 more presently in play (including one of the PCs playbook enemy, The Coven, and The Mastermind Threat), another PC playbook will have their enemy Threat come online next loop (The Beast), and pending on how the final PC's thematic trappings resolve, there might be another Threat (The Orphan) that hits play. Consequentially different than Alexander's Three Clue rule:

* There is no GM or system pre-authored "state of the world"; plot. The players explore situations via a structured play loop, clues accrue (more on that below), and the players perform the Answer a Question move (possibly more than once if the Threat is a multi-Question Threat) where (a) they posit a "working theory" for the answer to the question based upon the accretion of preceding play/clues and (b) roll 2d6 + Clues - Question Complexity (so 6 Clues - 4 Complexity = 2d6 +2) to resolve their "working theory." On a "hit," the players "working theory" is correct and I frame an "endgame (for the Threat)" scene presenting them an opportunity to put it down/resolve it.

* As there is no GM or system pre-authored "state of the world" (plot), the Clues don't strategically mainline that pre-authored “state of the world” onto play. Clues come from a variety of means; scenario-devised, off the GM's head or subtly manipulated the scenario clues for the framed scene and PC move made at hand (and or off the motiff of The Unscene which is a thematic device to pace the dangerous and feral Night Phase), the GM Disclaims Decision-making (about a Clue) to the table-at-large or a specific player, a player authors a Clue directly from The Vulnerable move (once per play loop), a player authors a Clue directly because one of their playbook moves facilitates that in-situ player authorship.

Net, the above is a very different play paradigm and play experience than what JA is putting forth in his "Three Clue Rule" and the evidence that it contradicts "Don't Prep Plots" (hat tip Dogs in the Vineyard) is embedded in the contrast of the play paradigm of The Between and the experience of both GMing it and being a player in it.

 

[pemerton]

The three clue rule is designed specifically to keep the game moving per a determined manner.

A clue is connected to a specific mystery or problem to be solved.

But if you want them to discover something… if you include three ways for them to discover something precisely so that they don’t fail to discover it… then you want them to find it. Which means you want that for a reason… presumably so that they can engage in the next step of the scenario.

It isn’t bad advice, in and of itself. But I think it’s much more relevant to adventures that do have a plot. Mysteries or investigations. Call of Cthulhu and similar games benefit from this advice.

Again, it’s not bad advice. I mean, there’s a reason it was first mentioned (I believe… correct me if I’m wrong) Trail of Cthulhu and is a staple of gumshoe games. It works well with mystery scenarios.

So what's the advice, in a nutshell?

When prepping your scenario, think about:

*The hook, that will draw the PCs into the scenario;

*The places and people that are at the core of the scenario;

*The sorts of events or objects or other fictional elements that (i) link those people and places, and (ii) that the PCs might discover.

*When it comes to the previous point, particularly once we're past the "hook" stage, then for any linked pair of person/place, think of at least three ways - events, objects or other fictional elements - that might reveal that linkage to the PCs.​

This advice does not seem to have much applicability to preparation for a classic dungeon-crawl. Nor does it have any applicability to preparation for (say) Burning Wheel, or Prince Valiant. As you say, it probably has quite a bit of relevance for prepping for something CoC-ish.

 

[pemerton]

The adventures I’ve run by Necrotic Gnome also use a mix. If it’s only in the key, that monster’s not going anywhere except under exceptional circumstances. If it’s on the map, then the stats will be in the key for that room, but the monster might leave its room to investigate/fight/etc if the PCs do something to draw attention to themselves.

What he’s doing is trying to solve the problem where the monsters are keyed to a room and just sit in there until the PCs arrive to beat them up. Moving that information out of the key makes it easier for the GM to have the monsters respond from other areas.

If one is going to be using a map and key, which is something I like to do for certain kinds of play, then there’s a lot one can do to make them more practical tools for the GM. Adversary rosters are one way to do that.

For me, this raises a question, or perhaps its better to say it generates an implication, that I've often pointed to in contrasting Gygax's PHB with his DMG.

Gygax's PHB concludes (prior to its appendices) with a discussion of Successful Adventuring. This includes play advice, which is based mostly around the idea of first, scout and map some part of the dungeon so as to identify an objective for a raid, and then prepare for the raid, and undertake it, very purposefully. The premise of this advice is that rooms are keyed, so that at the first stage the players can (in effect) reveal the key, and then at the second stage, act on that knowledge.

The advice becomes useless if the key is not stable. Gygax in his DMG gives advice about "living" and "responsive" dungeon" which will have the effect of making the key not stable. This undermines the advice he gave a year earlier in his PHB.

The idea of "adversary rosters" seems to me to raise a similar concern: it makes it hard for the players to obtain reliable information about the dungeon, which they can then plan around.

Have I missed something? Is there some other workaround I've not noticed? Or is the idea of players reveal the key, then prep and act on that knowledge not an element of the play in which adversary rosters figure?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

a clue is just information, it is not an order for the players to do anything.

In your post the chars come across some tracks, that is / can be a clue about where the bandits are located.

The same with the guy stealing their rations during the night, the information Roy gives the party after they capture him are clues.

You cannot really run a game and not give any clues, it then is up to the players to decide what to do with them

Hmmm, I think we have utterly different ideas about how RPGs work. Honestly I mostly feel like that is true with TA as well, while his rosters and such might be usable to elide plot, I'm not sure he's really interested in doing that except on a very local scale. The "three clues" juxtaposed with "situations, not plots" really cannot be resolved any other way. He's not talking about true player freedom to interact with content and PLOT to emerge. He's just saying that specific tactical situations aren't scripted, but all the nodes and clues and such at the next level up, the 'adventure arc' is all totally mapped out, its plot to the max! I mean, it may be "several alternatives might emerge" but all of them were thoroughly envisaged by the GM.

OTOH an AW game does this top to bottom, there's NEVER any plot, at any level of play. Only what story emerges and the plot which that entails after the fact.