Why the World Exists

[Mallus]

So the PC's aren't doing anything until it's they're turn to die...

Oh sure, the 2nd level PC's are taking actions. Run a few playtests with the CR18 dragon vs. village and the 2nd level PC's. Tell me how it works out.

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

Doesn't a DM uses his judgment (and knowledge) when creating his settings internal logic? Wouldn't that be the same judgment (and knowledge) he uses during play to make judgment calls (ie when he uses DM Fiat)? Thus making them strikingly similar...

Or is that to obvious?

Nothing is 100%..

Only when the DM is rigging things.

 

[Ourph]

Good example.

So in your campaign, when the 2nd level PCs show up in town to do some shopping, how do you go about determining whether there are any other adventuring parties nearby who have POed large, dangerous creatures? How do you determine whether there are any evil, high-level casters who have teleported into the area and summoned a Pit Fiend? How do you determine
whether an upstream battle with an elder water elemental causes massive flooding?

 

[GnomeWorks]

Only when the DM is rigging things.

"Impossible" things happen.

Nothing is guaranteed.

 

[Raven Crowking]

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

All I can say, Remathilis, is that your conception of the "real world" is far different from mine.

In my "real world", there are cities, neighbourhoods, etc., where getting shot is much more likely than in others. I've had a gun pointed at my twice in my life -- once by an officer of the law (honest mistake on his part!), and once by a guy in a bar in California. Neither time, strangely enough, did I get shot in the head.

I used to work in "Boys in the Hood" country in Los Angeles (the Kraft Knudsen factory at Slauson & Crenshaw), where they included tie and suit jacket/sweater in the dress code. I am white. Every day, I took the bus into and out of work, and almost everyday I walked to get lunch in the neighbourhood. I had a problem once with two fellows who were drunk, and it was a problem that was dealt with without violence, flight, or anything other than words.

I once fell 35 feet and broke my back in four places (L1, L2, L3, and L4), and was told that I was never going to walk again without a cane. Well, that turned out to be a false prediction. I now go hiking every summer. It hurt a lot (at times) to get to that point, but I was glad that I did.

I have seen two tornados first hand, once as a child and once as an adult. I have once seen the aftermath of a tornado I didn't see. Oddly enough, I wasn't harmed in either instance (although the first one was certainly scary!).

I have lived 42 years now, and so far as I can tell have never been struck by lightning or gotten an incurable disease. Although I've hiked all my life in country where there were dangerous animals (venomous snakes and/or bears at least, sometimes where there were wolves or cougars), I've never been attacked by one.

I have had friends die....the first of a congenital heart disease when I was in high school.....but I've never seen real people die in anything like the numbers that PCs and NPCs do in most D&D games.

If anything, the sandbox world is considerably more dangerous than the real world, with considerably greater chance for a "sucks to be you" moment.



RC

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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.



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

I am not sure why he has to use it, or other examples - and even better ones - are invalid.

To expand on my teleport trap.

The trap is actually not a trap. 500 years ago, it lead to an underground cavern. Unfortunately, an earth quake a few decades ago diverted a stream of magma into that cavern.
Nobody in the dungeon leading to the teleportation trap new of the exact details, since the 2 Golems protecting the trap were both instructed to never use the portal and to let no one near it - and they managed, until the PCs attacked them in conjunction with some allied goblins.

 

[Raven Crowking]

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

Ah.

You didn't tell me that this was the Quantum Dragon, who can split into several beings in order to chase each survivor individually. Dragon Manhattan?

Your argument becomes weaker the farther you extend it.

Shall we stick to natural disasters?

Oh, and Ourph, to answer your question, I use an "Events Planner"....a series of charts based off those in the back of the 1e OA. So, if a natural disaster is going to occur, I already know it, and I know where. If the PCs happen to be there, it still occurs there, unless they are somehow able to stop it from happening (which is unlikely). Thus, for example, the collapse of Selby-by-the-Water and the resultant cholera epidemic.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

To expand on my teleport trap.

Nice. I might use that.......

The PCs know that the thing hasn't been used in a long time, and the players know that the world changes.

Me, I would probably pull the lever anyway (I do that sometimes), but I wouldn't consider the result unfair.


RC

 

[Ourph]

Oh, and Ourph, to answer your question, I use an "Events Planner"....a series of charts based off those in the back of the 1e OA. So, if a natural disaster is going to occur, I already know it, and I know where. If the PCs happen to be there, it still occurs there, unless they are somehow able to stop it from happening (which is unlikely). Thus, for example, the collapse of Selby-by-the-Water and the resultant cholera epidemic.

So what is the percent chance, based on this Events Planner, that an evil magician teleports into the town the PCs are shopping in and summons a Pit Fiend into the town square?

 

[Imaro]

Oh sure, the 2nd level PC's are taking actions. Run a few playtests with the CR18 dragon vs. village and the 2nd level PC's. Tell me how it works out. .

With 400-900 people between them and the Dragon as well as the whole area of a village and the surrounding wilderness for the Dragon to contend with... how is this an insta-kill, if the PC's flee?

Doesn't a DM uses his judgment (and knowledge) when creating his settings internal logic? Wouldn't that be the same judgment (and knowledge) he uses during play to make judgment calls (ie when he uses DM Fiat)? Thus making them strikingly similar...

Or is that to obvious?.

Similar? Perhaps, but even then I bet a DM would probably come up with a much better (and arguably different) solution given time to think it through...YMMV of course, or is that to obvious?

Only when the DM is rigging things.

According to Mallus Huh?

 

[LostSoul]

However if you're going to argue against simulationism or sandbox play

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?

What definition of simulationism are you guys using?