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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6567162" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>OK, so what if the DM simply calculated ahead of time as he was writing up his setting what level the PCs would be at when they got to location X and put monsters of that level in that location? Is that not meta-game? What I am proposing is that this is EXACTLY WHAT ALL SETTING DESIGNERS DO. They may not follow that exact linear process. They may instead do various things. They might say "I'd like to have some giants in the game, lets see where a good place to put them would be" and then they put them far from the town in the mountains where the PCs won't go until they reach level 8, and to make it even more explicit he plants a rumor that giants are in the mountains at the tavern (maybe ahead of time, maybe he thinks of it when the PCs go in for a drink and ask around). The point is that in all these cases there's some sort of consideration that goes outside the bounds of the game world itself and speaks to the dramatic needs of the game as a game. This is an inevitable and unavoidable part of the process and it shapes all such activity. In fact I would posit that it is the overwhelmingly dominant factor in such activity.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>But examine this whole example closely. The 'town' might include several thousand inhabitants. The DM/setting designer will have probably detailed the personality and motivations of 2 dozen or less of them, to some varying degree. The rest aren't more substantial than the overall population figure for the town. Maybe at best the DM has an idea of the realities of agriculture in the real world and knows that about 90% of these people must of necessity be agricultural workers. Does he have enough detail about their interrelationships to have any idea whether or not one of them is likely to come to the PCs for help with some problem or have some motivation to get them out of jail? Of course not. Instead he addresses the DRAMATIC NEED of the moment and decides that yes indeed he can invent some reason for someone to do whatever the plot requires. He invents some uncles and cousins of whomever, makes up a story about how that time the PC rescued a villager from goblins it was their cousin, etc etc etc. and cooks up a plot. That's how it works. There's nothing objective about it, the world isn't running itself, its just a toolbox for meeting dramatic needs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 6567162, member: 82106"] OK, so what if the DM simply calculated ahead of time as he was writing up his setting what level the PCs would be at when they got to location X and put monsters of that level in that location? Is that not meta-game? What I am proposing is that this is EXACTLY WHAT ALL SETTING DESIGNERS DO. They may not follow that exact linear process. They may instead do various things. They might say "I'd like to have some giants in the game, lets see where a good place to put them would be" and then they put them far from the town in the mountains where the PCs won't go until they reach level 8, and to make it even more explicit he plants a rumor that giants are in the mountains at the tavern (maybe ahead of time, maybe he thinks of it when the PCs go in for a drink and ask around). The point is that in all these cases there's some sort of consideration that goes outside the bounds of the game world itself and speaks to the dramatic needs of the game as a game. This is an inevitable and unavoidable part of the process and it shapes all such activity. In fact I would posit that it is the overwhelmingly dominant factor in such activity. But examine this whole example closely. The 'town' might include several thousand inhabitants. The DM/setting designer will have probably detailed the personality and motivations of 2 dozen or less of them, to some varying degree. The rest aren't more substantial than the overall population figure for the town. Maybe at best the DM has an idea of the realities of agriculture in the real world and knows that about 90% of these people must of necessity be agricultural workers. Does he have enough detail about their interrelationships to have any idea whether or not one of them is likely to come to the PCs for help with some problem or have some motivation to get them out of jail? Of course not. Instead he addresses the DRAMATIC NEED of the moment and decides that yes indeed he can invent some reason for someone to do whatever the plot requires. He invents some uncles and cousins of whomever, makes up a story about how that time the PC rescued a villager from goblins it was their cousin, etc etc etc. and cooks up a plot. That's how it works. There's nothing objective about it, the world isn't running itself, its just a toolbox for meeting dramatic needs. [/QUOTE]
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