Why the World Exists

[Imaro]

First, suddenly is poor word choice. Its not suddenly for the players at all. The players are not aware of any kind of "sudden" adjustment. They heard rumors that the caves were full of goblins, they go check it out, and find it is full of goblins. This remains true, no story elements change at all, whether those goblins are lvl 1, lvl 4 or lvl 8, or a healthy mix of many different types.

Second, I've repeatedly said "not everything". Range of challenge is informed by the nature of the locale. A cave filled with goblins has a lot of possible ranges, but still an appropriate limit. A powerful monster isn't going to level adjust to low level PCs. In a sandbox, freedom is ALWAYS an illusion (yes, in yours too). You can't freely explore something that isn't there. If the DM doesn't place it in the box, its not an option. If the DM hasn't placed a marauding dragon in the setting, never had villages attacked or even a rumor of such a powerful foe nearby, then the players suddenly deciding they want to find and kill one is not something the setting can reasonably do. Unless, that is, you are willing to adjust your setting for the PCs. If you aren't, then freedom is certainly an illusion. If you are, then, well, what are we really arguing about?

I like my, and my players, freedom. I run sandbox games specifically so the PCs can find the game they want to play and when they do, it will be challenging. If the PCs want to do something that I haven't accounted for in the sandbox at all, I like to have the freedom to work that into the setting, even though it wasn't there. I like to have the freedom to challenge them appropriately when they decide to spend their time and resources on something. The freedom in such a setting is always an illusion, the game is an illusion itself, that's the nature of the beast.

If I haven't placed a marauding Dragon in my setting my PC's are welcome to go look for one but they won't find it. Freedom doesn't mean having everything you want given to you it's making choices from your options that have meaning and consequences in the game. Perhaps if I roll a dragon on the wandering monsters chart, then one is sighted and appears but if not oh, well people spent their lives searchingfor the fountain of youth and never found it...doesn't mean the journey won't be interesting.

All I'm saying is that my players have enjoyed the feeling of having to run from an enemy, only to return for that enemy when they've gained in power and pay him back. If I adjust the challenges this is way less likely to happen, and this is just one example of why I like to set the levels at different points and keep them there... besides after 20/30 levels of always running into something we can clober well it starts to feel contrived.

 

[The Shaman]

You do realize, do you not, that you say you are leery of equating a "good, playable gaming experience" with "an interesting story" and then you proceed to do exactly that in your next sentence (underlined in the above quote).

You didn't read that sentence carefully, Ourph. The passage I quoted said "in the service of a good story." I don't see the game as the vehicle for creating a story, which is what I interpreted the passge to mean. In my experience that results in fudging dice, plot immunity, and a bunch of other stuff that takes away from the enjoyment I get from roleplaying games.

Recounting the events of actual play and crafting adventures to tell a story are not the same thing to me.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I see you're making some convenient assumptions about the speed at which information travels.

You're basically stating it's always logical for there to be ample warning. That's nonsense --actually Cadfan describes this well in his last post.

In your dragon example? How can there not be ample warning in a simulationist world where the dragon follows the simulation, rather than the "story" of what the DM wants to have happen?

Funny, I never thought of Professor Tolkien as being particularly metagamey, let alone vindictive.

Good example.

In the case of the first attack on the Lonely Mountain, we are told specifically that it was too late to stop the dragon, but not too late for some to escape and survive. Certainly, when the dragon attacked Dale, the dwarves should have heard the ringing bells and prepared better......not to mention that they should have actually used those lookout posts on the Mountain, and seen the dragon coming.

In the case of the attack on Esgaroth, the townsmen had seen the lights on the Mountain for a couple of days, saw the dragon reflected in the lake as it sped down the river, and were able to douse roofs/cut bridges/mount a defense that not only saved most of their lives, but killed the dragon as well.

So, if Tolkein is the example we should go by, please tell me where what he demonstrates differs from what I am saying?

Perhaps we should go by the tsunami example, which is certainly more likely to offer less warning, is certainly possible in any game world I've ever run (I've had PCs experience the sinking of my world's Atlantis first hand), and certainly could kill (but not will or must kill) even high-level PCs. In my world, this could happen. Heck, I had a town the PCs were in collapse in the Lakelands; that might have killed them, too.

And, guess what? That chance enhances the fun of the game.


RC

 

[Remathilis]

Do you guys really not see what you're doing?

You're constantly justifying things by explaining that they're what's "realistic," and saying that what's "realistic" should happen even if its not pleasant from the perspective of the players.

When people point out that this could lead to unfair results, you come up with all kinds of reasons why the players could have avoided the unfun results if they'd tried harder.

When people point out that not every realistic and unfun thing is actually avoidable, you attack the hypothetical and argue that it really IS avoidable, or if you can't win that fight, you argue that its the allegedly realistic and unfun thing is actually unrealistic.

That's why Mallus shouldn't give you an explanation for why his dragon is killing the low level PCs. It doesn't matter why. Giving you an actual explanation is just giving you a crack to wiggle through on an unrelated objection.

As long as one hypothetical realistic explanation exists for why low level PCs might be killed by a high level dragon, you guys are stuck. Because when your only justification for why things are the way they are in your game world is "because that's how they really are" or "because that's realistic," then you can't explain how you choose between multiple realistic possibilities.

Personally, I suspect you do it exactly the same way everyone else does, you just say you don't.

Exactly.

In the real world, people randomly walk into convenience stores in the middle of a robbery and get shot in the head. Or two drug dealer have a shoot out in the street and a stray bullet flies into their window and kills them. There is no warning. There is no "clever play". Perhaps the person walking into a mugging saw the events through the 7-11 window and decided to be a hero. Perhaps they were on their cell phone and never saw it. But just as likely they walked in with no knowledge, no rhyme, no reason.

If the game world is a simulation of a "realistic" world, that makes the DM the "God" of that world. Either he has a reason to put that mugger in the store with a gun at the exact time the hapless shopper went for a Slurpee, or the universe is indeed random and "God" rolled a random encounter far above the shoppers ability. There is no other option. If there is, then the guy walking into the store had ample "Warning" there was a problem and the player foolishly ignored it.

Cept again, that's not how it works in a real world, right?

So you end up with three potential situations.

1.) A Scripted World where the DM puts everything there for a reason (the "God has a plan for us" DM)
2.) A Semi-Scripted World where Random stuff happens, but there is usually some forewarning or alternative (The "God sent warnings to me" DM)
3.) A truly random world where sometimes there is warnings, but sometimes you just walk into a room and die, with no warning, notice, etc. (The "There is no God, the universe is chaos" DM).

Because unless your world is truly "chaotic" a DM is scripting events for his PCs. The first is much more proactive, the second is more reactive. The third is letting the chips fall where they may.

EDIT: The term "God" in this case does not mean any particular god of any particular religion, but is shorthand for some being that has power to manipulate the world and the beings in it. It should not be taken for a real-world argument on the presence or absence of a real world divine power.

 

[Imaro]

Funny, I never thought of Professor Tolkien as being particularly metagamey, let alone vindictive.

On a more serious note, you're right that simply deciding that this happens is both metagamey and a real pooper of a thing to do. But on the other hand, not even considering that it happens is equally metagamey, but in a benevolent way.

In a setting where both red dragons and adventurers (other than the PCs) exist, there is some chance that the outlined scenario happens. In a 100% sandboxy campaign (a hypothetical construct to be sure), the DM should be assigning a percentage chance to this scenario happening and rolling for it. If that's not happening, if the scenario never even makes its way onto a table of random events (i.e. the possibility doesn't exist that the scenario could happen), the DM has exercised just as much metagame fiat as if he simply decided that the scenario does happen.

It is, unless the DM decides otherwise, just abstracted to a non-roll (like many things in D&D). It is of such low probability (about equal to a lion breaking through the two doors in the bottom of my apartment, coming up three flights of stairs, breaking through my apartment door coming into my bedroom and attacking me. Note this happening is not the same chance as it not happening thus realistic vs. non-realisic) that yeah, it could happen, but the probability is not large enough for me to consider unless something happens to increase it.

 

[Mallus]

... how can this instantly incinerate an entire village of 400 to 900 people?

Hint: it doesn't have to instantaneous. Just inevitable.

... you see there are so many variables that can take place that I fail to see this as an instant death scenario for the PC's.

My argument is based on the notion it's never an instant death scenario. Read Ourph's last post, he makes the point better than me.

No a created and adhered to system for determining things is not the same as creating events and things whilly nilly from moment to moment.

When they're created by the same person it is.

... big difference is that tornado in no sense of realism = instant death. People have survived natural disasters and thius in being realistic the PC's also have a chance to survive one.

So all tornadoes are survivable, so long as the correct action is taken? Each and every one?

 

[Mallus]

In your dragon example? How can there not be ample warning in a simulationist world where the dragon follows the simulation...

The angry dragon flies faster than the survivors can run or ride?

 

[Imaro]

Hint: it doesn't have to instantaneous. Just inevitable.

So the PC's aren't doing anything until it's they're turn to die...or have you as DM decided, instead of letting the roll of the die decide, they cannot survive no matter creating a 100% possibility which cannot exist in reality.

My argument is based on the notion it's never an instant death scenario. Read Ourph's last post, he makes the point better than me.

So you're going to ignore Mustrum's portal example too..ok

When they're created by the same person it is.

Yeah because Reign and Unknown Armies are the exact same since Greg Stolze wrote both of them... wait no they aren't.

So all tornadoes are survivable, so long as the correct action is taken? Each and every one?

Nothing is 100%, there is a chance to survive a tornado, whether that chance increases or decreases is dependent, at least in part, by the actions of the one trying to survive, as well as the environment he is in, who else is around, and so on...too many variables to claim it's instant death.

 

[Celebrim]

In the real world, people randomly walk into convenience stores in the middle of a robbery and get shot in the head. Or two drug dealer have a shoot out in the street and a stray bullet flies into their window and kills them. There is no warning. There is no "clever play". Perhaps the person walking into a mugging saw the events through the 7-11 window and decided to be a hero. Perhaps they were on their cell phone and never saw it. But just as likely they walked in with no knowledge, no rhyme, no reason.

In D&D, player characters have hit points - usually, a lot of them to give ablative protection against such things. They are also walking engines of destruction. They are 'Conan'. They are 'Gandalf' (who was arguably 6th level, remember?). That provides plenty of protection against realistic ordinary hazards. They can randomly walk into the middle of a robbery, but the outcome is likely to be alot different than me or you walking into a robbery. Random scrub NPC's are highly unlikely to be more than 4th level (and probably less) if I'm running the game. The PC's walking randomly into a robbery, however realistic that may be, is more than likely an oppurtunity to play golden age superheroes for a scene than a TPK. It'll be the robbers, not the PC's, at the wrong place at the wrong time in all liklihood.

The real interesting part of that scene for me won't be providing a 'level appropriate challenge' which it will only be in a very narrow band, but how do the PC's excercise their power. At first level, it probably means cowering with the other customers, and perhaps not even responding to attacks against them and hoping to appear as non-threatening as possible. At 10th level, it probably means the lives of the robbers are in their hands to do with as they please. And the thing is, it could be the very same robbers. That might be an interesting coincidence where I'd put my thumb on the 'dice' as it were.

Still, whatever style of play you use, there is always a chance that the ogre scores a crtical with his battle axe and drops the PC instantly or provokes save vs. massive damage that drops the PC instantly. The random unfair death can occur even in an 'level appropriate encounter'. So, I don't see a point in complaining too much about real or simulated randomness.

 

[Ourph]

Again, this...

I don't see the game as the vehicle for creating a story

Directly contradicts what you said earlier.

For me, there is no "story" until the "good, playable gaming experience" takes place.

If the story you're talking about above (in bold) isn't coming from the game, where is it coming from?

Recounting the events of actual play and crafting adventures to tell a story are not the same thing to me.

They are also not the same thing to me. I suspect, based on the context in which he was using the word "story", they are not the same thing to Mallus either. You're automatically assuming that the word "story" means one thing when used by you and another thing when used by somebody else.