Again, not relevant to the presence or absence of level responsive game-world design.
Why the World Exists
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Raven Crowking
First Post
It amazes me that you are unable to see the distinction, although I think I "know" you well enough to believe that you are sincere.
In one paradigm, the world exists, and the players determine what sort of challenge they are capable of facing. In general, the players need to determine what level of challenge any given in-world location or object represents, based upon information and hints that are presented in the context of the world itself. I.e., if everyone is afraid of Bad Bart, it may be that Bad Bart is indeed powerful, or it may be that Bad Bart bluffs well.
In the other paradigm, the player characters exist, and the DM determines what sort of challenge they are capable of facing. In general, the players need not worry about what level of challenge any in-world location or object represents. I.e., if they are opposed by it, it is automatically of a challenge level that they are capable of defeating. Should the encounter result in a TPK, it is the fault of the DM for not adjudicating the encounter level properly. I.e., if everyone is afraid of Bad Bart, but Bad Bart has something the PCs what/need, the players know that they can "take" Bad Bart.
RC
The Ghost
Explorer
It matters in that the PCs determine what level their challenges are, not me. I just provide them the opportunity to be challenged. By virtue of its' existence, the PCs become the determining factor in whether or not they wish to face this particular challenge, and when. Without its' existence, they do not have that choice.
Dragonblade
Adventurer
Well, going back to the wishlist thing. I go for a pure meta-game approach. I just tell the players you find an item of level X, decide which one of you gets it and go pick it out of the PHB, or AV.
The reason I do this is because it convenient and unless its a signature item or artifact, what items people find in loot are something I want to de-emphasize in play. My game is about the players being part of a cool story which I set the framework for as DM, but which they ultimately control the course of.
I don't want my players bogged down haggling over the buying and selling of magic items whenever they come into town. If they do have items they have outgrown, they can buy and sell them at cost. And if they want to have a signature item that is intrinsic to their character, then I'll allow them to level up their item as appropriate in lieu of getting a new item.
The notion that killing things and taking randomly rolled stuff is somehow more heroic than killing things and taking stuff the players have chosen is just ridiculous.
The reason I do this is because it convenient and unless its a signature item or artifact, what items people find in loot are something I want to de-emphasize in play. My game is about the players being part of a cool story which I set the framework for as DM, but which they ultimately control the course of.
I don't want my players bogged down haggling over the buying and selling of magic items whenever they come into town. If they do have items they have outgrown, they can buy and sell them at cost. And if they want to have a signature item that is intrinsic to their character, then I'll allow them to level up their item as appropriate in lieu of getting a new item.
The notion that killing things and taking randomly rolled stuff is somehow more heroic than killing things and taking stuff the players have chosen is just ridiculous.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Cadfan, I think the Ghost and Raven Crowking seem to explain the difference - it is who gets to decide whether something might be appropriate or not.
With half-way clever players and DM, either choice will probably lead to the same game experience, so the question might be - is it really that important in practice or more a philosophical question? I don't know.
In the end, in either scenario the world exists to make for an entertaining and "fun" game for the players and the DM. People have different ways of being entertained or having fun, so I think the OP makes one crucial mistake: Assuming there is a right and a wrong way. There isn't.
I prefer stuff like adventure paths, tailored encounters, and plot hooks and material that fits the players desires (as they explicitly express them as well as implicitly provide them by their character abilities and actions.) I don't trust the "emergent" fun of a different approach. I am obviously not alone with this preference, but there are enough people that find this approach unsatisfying.
I tend to think that most systems can be used for either approach, though one approach might be made easier by a system.
For example, a system that doesn't come with a few random encounter tables might require the DM to make them up, a system that doesn't come with a measurement for character power vs monster power (Challenge Rating, monster levels etc.pp.) requires the DM to figure the power out themselves.
With half-way clever players and DM, either choice will probably lead to the same game experience, so the question might be - is it really that important in practice or more a philosophical question? I don't know.
In the end, in either scenario the world exists to make for an entertaining and "fun" game for the players and the DM. People have different ways of being entertained or having fun, so I think the OP makes one crucial mistake: Assuming there is a right and a wrong way. There isn't.
I prefer stuff like adventure paths, tailored encounters, and plot hooks and material that fits the players desires (as they explicitly express them as well as implicitly provide them by their character abilities and actions.) I don't trust the "emergent" fun of a different approach. I am obviously not alone with this preference, but there are enough people that find this approach unsatisfying.
I tend to think that most systems can be used for either approach, though one approach might be made easier by a system.
For example, a system that doesn't come with a few random encounter tables might require the DM to make them up, a system that doesn't come with a measurement for character power vs monster power (Challenge Rating, monster levels etc.pp.) requires the DM to figure the power out themselves.
Except you left out the key aspect that makes it the same (for the purposes of level responsive design, I don't want to get into another argument about how dragons are different from wyverns).
In the first example, the DM (at least the one I'm talking to, also good DMs in general who don't trap the party into TPKs and then blame them for unavoidable mistakes) also makes sure that the players know enough information to make meaningful choices. Reasonable choices by the PCs still lead to level appropriate challenges. If combat with a particular foe would lead to inevitable death, warning signs are carefully erected so that combat with that foe does not occur. If that foe is otherwise encountered, the context (such as the "sneak past the dragon" scenario discussed above) is one of a level appropriate encounter.
I don't see a major difference between
1. "there's no enormous dragon next to the town because I didn't want the PCs to blunder into it and die at level 1" and
2. "ok, there IS an enormous dragon next to the town, but I don't want the PCs to blunder into it and die at level 1, so I'm making sure they know the dragon will inevitably eat them if they fight it, and I'm making sure that any DM instigated encounters with the dragons are non combat scenes where the PCs sneak past or hide from or flee the dragon. Technically the PCs could decide to do something moronic and end up eaten by the dragon, but only if they ignore the clear and obvious warning signs."
Its technically true that the second option offers the PCs a choice that wasn't available in the first option (its also true that whatever else the first DM uses instead of a dragon would offer new choices), but the second option takes extra care to make sure that the "choice" it offers is really a non-choice. The cards are all on the table. There is a dragon, and it will eat you dead. Do you want to be eaten dead by the dragon? Y/N. Obviously no.
So... yeah. There's two big ways that the second option represents level responsive game design. First, all of this effort is done to accomplish precisely the same task- to engineer the world to be suited for adventure by players of low level characters. Second, if the engineering works, the additional choices offered have only one practical outcome- level appropriate challenges are encountered (although the challenges are sometimes "hide from the big bad monster" instead of "kill the big bad monster").
As this forum's perhaps foremost advocate of illusionism, I'm hardly going to criticize the offering of a false choice to the PCs.
I just don't think that DMs should start believing in their own illusions.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
I think one difference I see is that your extreme doesn't have to be true.
Look at random encounter tables. If there is a 5 % chance that the 1st level PCs encounter the Ancient Wyrm when traveling through the forest, they might know that - but does that mean they will never ever dare to enter the forest until they are of sufficient level?
Or can we assume that the DM will engineer the scenario in a way to give the PCs some warning signs ("You hear a terrible roar - it must be the Dragon! What do you do!" - "We run in the opposite direction and hide!")?
Of course, if I was the DM, that's what I would do, and I'd turn it into a "level appropriate" challenge. Because otherwise it still seems unfair and not conductive to my enjoyment of the game. Because there was nothing the PCs really could have done except not using the forest to avoid that problem - after all, they don't control the outcome of my d% on the random encounter table!
It seems like "Save or Die" to me. Of course every PC death and every TPK hinges on one final roll, but as usual my problem is that there is no way to really "predict" it happening or providing an opportunity to turn things around. The only way this works for me is
1) A threat appears
2) I can make a choice on how to deal with it
3) My decision meaningful affects whether the the threat is realized (bad things happen) or not.
(And note in this example: The threat does - not in my "mental model" of the game world - appear when I choose to enter the forest. It appears when the DM rolls that the Dragon appears. Before this decision, the threat did not appear. It was a threat like "I might have a heart stroke today" or "a tree could fall down on me". Yes, it is a possibility, but the threat hasn't really appeared.)
The Ghost
Explorer
This is not the case.
This is.
It is the PCs decision to make the choice. Not mine. I let the players determine if the risk is worth the reward.
Raven Crowking
First Post
As a player, knowing that these things are out there, and that I can choose to interact with them even if I do not significantly enhances the game experience, if not the actual sequence of effects. Much the difference in type (though not degree) between going to work knowing that you could seek another job, or being enslaved by your current employer. You might still do the same things on a daily basis, but I dare say that your experience would be monumentally different.
Except that, in my real gaming experience, players don't always take the hint. Moreover, they might think of things that surprise the DM. They might, for example, think that it is worth the risk to try to moniter the dragon's movements, and then creep into its lair when it is out, so as to gain a bit of its treasure. They might try to serve the dragon, or try to get the dragon to act against a mutual enemy. They might wish to pay tribute to the dragon in order to get it to perform certain actions for them, ala The Godfather. They might even come up with a brilliant scheme by which they pretend to be agents of the dragon, and scam some local village or orc tribe to give up sacrifices to "their master".
Once the dragon is put into the world, what the players decide to do with it is out of his or her hands. Until the DM puts the dragon into the world, that decision is always in his or her hands. Sometimes this is because the DM thinks "I know what's best for my players", sometimes because the DM thinks "dragons are only for fighting or avoiding anyway, so there's no real difference whether the dragon is there yet or not", and sometimes the DM hasn't really given it any thought.
But, here's the thing: In a world where that dragon exists, the players get to decide what challenges to face. They not only get to decide if "fight the dragon" is a challenge they can face, they get to decide if "talk to the dragon", "serve the dragon", "convince the dragon", and "use the dragon as basis of scams" are challenges they can face. They can make an illusion of a dragon that is credible to NPCs because the NPCs know there is a dragon. They can, frankly, come up with thousands of other, better, ideas than the ones I have outlined here.
(This is not so different, BTW, than traps. The only use of a trap is not to have the PCs blunder into it. Sometimes the PCs can arrange to have their enemies blunder into it. Just as they might manage to somehow convince a powerful foe that his real enemy is that pesky dragon, in hopes that they will soon be one powerful foe less.)
It is the players, not the DM, who decide if the dragon represents "The cards are all on the table. There is a dragon, and it will eat you dead. Do you want to be eaten dead by the dragon? Y/N. Obviously no." or not.
I have had low-level players seek out monsters they knew would probably eat them, because they saw it as a reasonable risk to gain some benefit they desired. Sometimes they were successful; sometimes they were eaten.
Player choices are not (or should not be) as black-and-white as you seem to think.
RC
Last edited:
Imaro
Legend
Ok, Cadfan I have just one question... what if the PC's find a way to defeat the dragon? Seriously what if they are ingenuous enough to pull it off without going head to head with the creature...does it change your position? Or what if the player's believe they are, even after all their research... how does it become a non-choice?
Some people wil take the big gamble, especially if they think they can pull it off. In the example with the dragon the DM is saying...hey if you want to bet against the house and bet it all, to win big...go ahead, you have that option.
In the non-dragon example, you don't get the chance to ever bet everything against the house. All of those "win or loose it all" tables are off-limits until the DM feels you are capable of betting on them regardless of whether you as a player do or don't.
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