Why the World Exists

[catsclaw227]

At my table, the game exists so that 6 guys can sit around a table together, have fun and laughs and do some roleplaying. The game exists for the players, the campaign world exists for the PCs.

How that plays out in-game will vary from adventure to adventure. I ask for wishlists. Not because I think everyone should get exactly what they want, but because it helps me understand what the player wants out of the PC he/she wants to play. I use the lists to build stories that match the kind of PC they want to develop. At the same time, the players don't purposefully to willy-nilly off in a direction that I haven't prepared or planned out because they want me to tell a story that match the kind of PC they want to develop. These thigns aren't mutually exclusive and they are part of the assumed gaming contract we make when the campaign starts.

I build what the players want, the players go in places that I am prepared for. NONE of this has to do with the PCs nor the campaign setting. These things are metagame topics that, while threaded in with the in-game situations and circumstances, don't reflect the PC wants or actions, nor does it reflect the actual make-up of my campaign world.

Just because I am not prepared for the PCs to go far to the west doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. But the players will not try to find out what is in the far west because the game is more enjoyable by all if they play in a region where the DM is prepared to tell stories.

As others have stated, the PCs don't provide wishlists, the players do. The PCs don't exist for the gameworld, because, well the whole of the gameworld isn't detailed out yet. The world shapes itself by the actions of the PCs. (I don't mean the physical landscape.... obviously I mean the adventures, plots, stories, interesting NPCs, magic items, etc....)

I hope some of that rambling mess made sense....

 

[FourthBear]

I don't think any of this issue has much to do with the quality or quantity of roleplaying around the table. You can justify requesting magic item lists from players from both a gamist and roleplaying perspective. You can also condemn requesting magic item lists from both a gamist and roleplaying perspective.

Gamist Pro: Allowing players to choose magic items allows them to customize their PCs abilities to meet challenges as they choose. Part of the game is choosing the right equipment for the challenge.

Gamist Con: Allow players to choose magic items removes the challenge of dealing with random treasure and/or DM placed treasure. Part of the game is making the most of what random tables, prepublished adventures and the DM grant you.

Roleplaying Pro: Allowing players to choose magic items allows them to customize their characters as they wish and get such issues out of the way in a quick, efficient fashion. Not allowing this just throws in a gamist challenge in addition that results in time spent on selling, bartering and seeking magic items. By making them less easily available, you make them more important. The stories that inspire D&D frequently have such convenient insertion of useful items.

Roleplaying Con: Allowing players to choose magic items results in contrivance and player expectations. Obtaining and dealing with unexpected magic items can represent a significant role playing challenge and help establish world verisimilitude. The contrivance of finding well suited magic items breaks immersion.

 

[Morrus]

If everyone followed this advice we'd have a pretty sparse forum. Obviously there are degrees of potential offensiveness, but let's face it: Just about every "something" is going to offend "someone", and for whatever reason RPGers, as a bunch, tend to take offense relatively quick-and-easily, especially when they think that--erroneously or not--Someone Else is telling them how to play RPGs. The worst offense of all!

That wasn't advice: them's the rules here, whether or not you personally agree with their effectiveness.

 

[Celebrim]

Roleplaying Pro: Allowing players to choose magic items allows them to customize their characters...

Except, that's not a roleplaying concern. I don't set down to the table as a player going, "I need to have a +4 shield." I set down thinking things like, "How is my cleric going to see this meeting as an oppurtunity to further understanding and community spirit." The fact that I have or don't have a +4 shield is utterly incidental to my character and even less important to my characterization. The only way the shield has any meaning to me as a player at all is if it is the 'Aegis of St. Glanvent', which makes my character have some distinction like 'the bearer of the Aegis of St. Glanvent'. Otherwise, it's just a shield. I don't really care that the Aegis of St. Glanvent is a +4 shield except to the extent that its intrinsic magic worth demonstrates the importance of being 'the bearer of the Aegis of St. Glanvent'.

So do you see how even from my perspective as a player, how a 'wish list' inherently conflicts with my needs and desires as a player? The very fact that some other player at the table is handing in a list that reads, "+4 cloak of resistance, +3 ghosttouch bastard sword", or some other crap like that is cramping my fun because from my perspective that player doesn't even have his mind on the game. He's busy playing Diablo or some such, rather than a PnP rpg.

...Not allowing this just throws in a gamist challenge in addition that results in time spent on selling, bartering and seeking magic items. By making them less easily available, you make them more important. The stories that inspire D&D frequently have such convenient insertion of useful items.

I'm not even sure I understand what this means. However, the 'stories that inspire D&D' generally don't have convenient insertions of useful items. Those items are generally meaningful for some reason other than the fact that they are 'useful', and often as not, the item is decidedly not 'convenient' in the sense of being the sort of item a PC would wish for. 'Stormbringer' is not 'convenient'. 'The One Ring' is not 'convenient'.

 

[ProfessorPain]

If everyone followed this advice we'd have a pretty sparse forum. Obviously there are degrees of potential offensiveness, but let's face it: Just about every "something" is going to offend "someone", and for whatever reason RPGers, as a bunch, tend to take offense relatively quick-and-easily, especially when they think that--erroneously or not--Someone Else is telling them how to play RPGs. The worst offense of all!

See, I probably just offended someone with Something I wrote.

How dare you assume your post offended someone. I am someone, and I was not in any way offended by your post. It was a reasonable statement of fact, and I am outraged you so quickly conclude I don't agree. Implying that I am somehow unable to follow your line of thought, because I once got an A- instead of an A+ on my Socratic Logic exam. I cannot believe you treat people who got A minuses as inferiors. You should be ashamed of yourself. Just because I got one A-, that doesn't mean I don't understand philosophy!

 

[Cadfan]

I think that idea is ultimately irrelevant to Reynard's point about eventually getting ahold of a particular device vs the concept. I don't believe Sting is an integral part of either Bilbo's or Frodo's character concept. It's a convenient tool for a few points of action, but tangential to the main point or primary action of the characters.
For Elric and Aragorn, their swords are part of their character concepts. But both must take pains to actually get them and, as D&D characters, would have significant life before achieving that character+sword concept. Elric contacts Arioch and goes specifically to find the blade. Viewed as a D&D PC, his search is entirely PC initiated. Aragorn totes around a broken sword for decades before being ready, proving his readiness, and before world events determine the time is ripe.

Using wishlists doesn't mean that you get random free magic items that fall from the sky. You still have to go out and get them somehow.

 

[Reynard]

Earlier editions also suggested that the monsters in a dungeon arrange themselves by level, with mostly Level 1 monsters on Level 1 (the level that the 1st level PCs would encounter first), Level 2 monsters on the next floor down and etc., so that players knew that the "deeper" they went into a dungeon the more dangeorus it would get. That doesn't strike me as being particularly on the side of "the world exists irrespective of the PCs".

It is a genre convention in older D&D that more dangerous things exist on deeper dungeon levels. But if the 1st level PCs find the stairs down (and they often did because there tended to be multiple points of entry to each level) and they hit level 2, the creatures on that level don't suddenly change "CR" to accomodate the PCs' level. More to the point, the dungeon exists in its state, with weaker monsters up top and more powerful ones deeper down and the PCs have the freedom to (attempt to) move about those levels as they wish. Even adventures designed for a specific level spread often included encounters -- whether on the random encounter chart or preplanned -- that did not match up to that adventure's target level.

Of course, as usual there's something of a contradiction in AD&D. Dungeon random encounters were indeed "levelled" while wilderness encounters were not (based on terrain, instead, with entries ranging from 0 level bandits to elder dragons). That itself is a curious thing and worthy of discussion (but another time).

 

[Reynard]

Cadfan re: Jade Jaws--

It isn't a binary choice. If Jade Jaws is known to live in the Big Wood, the only options aren't "avoid the big wood" and "frontal assault against Jade Jaws". What if the PCs have to get somewhere and their choices are to spend more time going around the Big Wood or taking a "shortcut" through and have a possibility of being dragon snack.

 

[Cadfan]

Cadfan re: Jade Jaws--

It isn't a binary choice. If Jade Jaws is known to live in the Big Wood, the only options aren't "avoid the big wood" and "frontal assault against Jade Jaws". What if the PCs have to get somewhere and their choices are to spend more time going around the Big Wood or taking a "shortcut" through and have a possibility of being dragon snack.

I cannot, for the life of me, see how that affects anything I said.

 

[FourthBear]

So do you see how even from my perspective as a player, how a 'wish list' inherently conflicts with my needs and desires as a player?

Inherently? No, I don't see that at all. I can see how you, as a particular player, may have needs and desires that are in conflict with wish lists. In which case, I recommend you do not participate. I think there are other players who have different needs and desires. I do not see that there is any *inherent* conflict at all between players (including DMs) and wish lists. If you don't want to use them, don't feel you have to. It's the tone of moral and ethical disapproval towards wish lists that seems ridiculous to me.

I'm not even sure I understand what this means. However, the 'stories that inspire D&D' generally don't have convenient insertions of useful items. Those items are generally meaningful for some reason other than the fact that they are 'useful', and often as not, the item is decidedly not 'convenient' in the sense of being the sort of item a PC would wish for. 'Stormbringer' is not 'convenient'. 'The One Ring' is not 'convenient'.

Such items were introduced, developed and placed in the story for the writer's convenience, not the characters. The One Ring was an extremely convenient item when first introduced in The Hobbit and it played an extremely convenient role in allowing Bilbo, a character of somewhat dubious adventuring skills, to play an important role in the story. There's no need to use scare quotes. The One Ring *was* a highly convenient item that also was developed into a central element of a larger story. The two concepts are not in any kind of conflict.

Are you seriously contesting that magic items introduced in fantasy stories are not frequently done so by authors as a convenient way to further the story? Note that, again, we are speaking of the convenience of the author, not the characters. The items aren't being generated by a random item table for the writer to respond to.