Part of it might be that my introduction to medieval RPGS was old school D&D in a sandbox; there was NEVER any idea of "mook, captain, boss".  You went as deep into the dungeon as you dared because the rewards were richer, and outdoors you never knew if you'd run into three ogres, four Balrogs, or an orc city.  You pretty much always needed to be ready for anything at all times.

Quote from: DavetheLost;931665I should also say that if you can be surprised by four Balrogs in the wilderness your game world is probably quite different to mine.

I am (always) talking about OD&D in a sandbox environment.

Yes, 0D&D in a sandbox according to the RAW plays quite differently to the way I play. I tend not to have as much random shit popping up in play. There are days when I think I have lost something by having a tamer, more "civilized" world. Perhaps some day I will run truly old school again.

If it needs to be said I was not meaning to imply that your way of playing is in any way "wrong". Just different is all. It surprised me to reflect and realize how much the way I play and run games now has changed from the way I used to.

Quote from: DavetheLost;931934Yes, 0D&D in a sandbox according to the RAW plays quite differently to the way I play. I tend not to have as much random shit popping up in play. There are days when I think I have lost something by having a tamer, more "civilized" world. Perhaps some day I will run truly old school again.

If it needs to be said I was not meaning to imply that your way of playing is in any way "wrong". Just different is all. It surprised me to reflect and realize how much the way I play and run games now has changed from the way I used to.

This Christmas I'm going to run my brother through a series of 1 GM 1 player games* of 5e in an effort to re-live and re-examine the way we got into tabletop RPGs in the first place: Fighting Fantasy choose-your-own adventure gamebooks and the rudimentary tabletop systems that grew out of them. Like you, I hope to see if there's anything I've lost that might be worth reclaiming. I'm especially curious to see if this format might be a better solution for online play, as I've been very dissatisfied with online games involving even average-sized groups.

* I was inspired by this podcast of miscellaneous 1 on 1 RPG sessions: https://soundcloud.com/partyofonepodcast

Quote from: DavetheLost;931934Yes, 0D&D in a sandbox according to the RAW plays quite differently to the way I play. I tend not to have as much random shit popping up in play. There are days when I think I have lost something by having a tamer, more "civilized" world. Perhaps some day I will run truly old school again.

If it needs to be said I was not meaning to imply that your way of playing is in any way "wrong". Just different is all. It surprised me to reflect and realize how much the way I play and run games now has changed from the way I used to.

Right, I got that.  No worries.

QuoteHere's the thing: lots of GMs who are very good at GMing just sort of do things by accident. They have an unconscious understanding of things like story structure and game mechanics and balance and all of that other crap. They run good games, and they can feel the difference between a good game and a bad game in their gut, but if you asked them to explain WHAT they were doing or WHY, they'd have trouble answering.

This. All of this. You just kind of do it. But then again, I use the Menzter table often to determine my mood. No seriously do this, roll 2d6 a few times and say to yourself, "How sadistic am I feeling today?" and then enjoy the players' expressions.

I love doing Player driven stuff. Yes it is a lot of work and it works best when the player has some idea of the direction they want to go. I find that I am most agreeable when the player adds some form of creativity or artistic ability. Like the time the one fellow brought a cardboard tube, and then pulled out a four by two foot map of an island he drew, accompanied by "I have this idea for my character..." And I'm like, "Well since the map is right here and all..." Mind you the usual player driven stuff is more along the lines of wanting a certain magic item or weapon, and making an adventure based on that. Or maybe the character wants to set up a business, or take over a kingdom, or flee from a sentence to kinghood. Maybe they just want to jump on horseback or a ship and go somewhere. Maybe they know where, maybe they don't. A lot of that is going to be of the hybrid variety anyway because their still playing in your sandbox.

The GM driven stuff is good for inexperienced players, players who have no idea what they want to do but they showed up which includes unexpected players showing up for a game, roll players or some mixture thereof. If you think using the Menzter table to determine my mood is bad, wait until I pull out Dungeon Dice to map out air vents in an Imperial Star Destroyer in a Star Wars game. I'm not a big plan of meta arcs per se. Rather than come up with storylines I prefer to just come up with well developed NPCs. I work out their motives and then I'll bullet point plot seeds that I can do with them.

I have to admit that in the last 20 years my GMing style has changed. I've played a LOT of Neverwinter Nights, mostly online on Persistent World servers, some good some not so much. So some of the cliches can carry over. My one 5e game on Sigil has the characters clearing out ice penguins from the basement because there's a portal to the elemental plane of ice. It's typical clear out the basement stuff but that translates really well to pen and paper. Next, they'll be going into the sewers because the Sigil server I played on in NWN2 had sewers, which may lead to Undersigil. It's still all sandbox, and there is a lot of room for player curiosity. I'll run players through modules but I read through the module first and try to get a grasp on the NPCs motivations. I mean, if there are bad guys undefeated afterwards they don't just disappear because the module is over.

It was mentioned that in a dungeon the players might think they are in control but they aren't. Well, that's underestimating the players for one. Yes, for the most part dungeon delving is a reactive endeavor. Ultimate the GM is coming up with the content. Now if they players are more proactive, you can do the reverse. Use your NPCs to react to the character's actions. Which is why I use the Mentzer Table all the time for everything and I don't care if that's not what it was intended for. It's damned useful.

Quote from: CRKrueger;930035The GM designs the world and all it's situations, so at the highest level, things are GM-Driven,
But then players choose how to interact with that world, so it's player-driven,
Then the GM, in Playing the World, dynamically adjusts what's happening, so then it's GM-driven,
then the players...etc.

If you're specifically designing for this as a GM that just means you haven't internalized it yet to where it's natural, which means, you still suck.

"... and all it's situations" I think that would be the point of failure right there. Or maybe not so much failure as poor allocation of free time. I mean, if you are doing that much detail for the sake of doing it or because you just love your world than there's nothing wrong with that. But if you are doing it because you want to prepare for any action your player's characters will make then therein lay the fail. My general rule of thumb is to calculate just how far the characters can possibly travel in a session and then familiarize myself with everything in that circle. This only works at low levels but by the time they can suddenly decide to go scavenge for spare parts in Automata the GM should be on the ball. Ultimately I prefer an interactive approach to reactive. On a metagame level I want to know what they players are looking for in the game, some of them will have specific goals. And a good chunk of the time I just make it up on the spot, including NPCs. Though I often recycle personas from game to game. Fantasy, Modern, Sci-Fi. Same NPCs, different stuff.

The way I see it, if I don't expect the players to break my shit there's no point in complaining when they break it. If I have a character come up against the Big Bad and roll a bunch of 20s right in front of me, or if they come up with some way to stop the Big Bad's plan that I didn't think of then I roll with it. If they are unable to disarm the Blackmoor device in time and half the continent gets wiped out well then I have some work to do.

I don't even know what I GM would need to internalize. The game does not exist without both a GM and players. Well... Okay. Funny thing is if you were to define a purely GM driven game that minimized player agency to encounters, then you wouldn't actually need a GM. It would be like a Choose your own Adventure book or a bunch of random map and encounter tables ala the 1e DMG or some combination of both, which could be pretty awesome. Of course the problem with that is that your characters are basically playing a board game and in a vacuum. I suppose you're right, player agency and it's effect on shaping the game world is something the GM should accept as happening because it will. If there is a way players can do something that will have far ranging repercussions or change the course of history, they will do it. Never show them anything you aren't prepared for them to attempt to take, and succeed. I still remember the reaction from the DM when we killed the monster named The Unkillable Beast.

I think if you want to have a GM focused game, then you just have to make things interesting. If you have a plotline or railroad you want to attempt, make it compelling. By compelling I mean entice them with loot. Mind you when I railroad characters I prefer to put them on an actual train, which is why most of my D&D worlds have tech upgrades to Gaslight Fantasy with some Steampunk, because I like trains. Trains are great for lineal adventures because the players are expecting it. If I have them take the Kara Tur Express to Shou Lung from Waterdeep I can pretty much have canned encounters for the whole thing unless they get board and decide to get off in the middle of the continent. Setting adventures on a ship, or caravan can work the same way. The GM has a lot of control over what happens. The train works great because they can't just stop it to set up an ambush for the Tuigan who are trying to ambush them first like they could in a caravan. Ships are nice because you're in the middle of the water and there's always some fool in heavy armor to make an example of. If you want to make a game where the GM has a lot of control there are ways to do this, and players will often go along with it.

So basically using lots of words to say everyone has a different play style.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;931793I'm sorry, I am genuinely unable to understand this.

I know the feeling. That's where I seem to be in this conversation.

QuoteI can't imagine anything in a CHAINMAIL battle being anything like a superhero comic.  But part of it is "In melee close up; in the face of missile fire,  or area effect, spread out."

And either that is a factor in combat in other settings or it is ignored for some reason in other settings. I honestly have no idea which is the case when you are playing.

QuoteI see people playing OD&D like a superhero game much more than vice versa. I run my OD&D games so that tactics are real.

Are you saying tactics aren't real in 4-color Supers or Star Wars when you play them? And if not, how not? Examples would be nice.

Quote from: Bren;931979Are you saying tactics aren't real in 4-color Supers or Star Wars when you play them? And if not, how not? Examples would be nice.

I don't want to speak for Gronan but I think it would closer to sat the tactics in a classic 4 color superhero battle are different than in a gritty D and D fight but not non existent.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;931941Right, I got that.  No worries.

Sorry to disappoint everyone who was hoping for a Battle of the Crusty Grognards Old School Throwdown Cage Match. Maybe next time

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;931197. . . a forum enemy.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;931720. . . a two-year-old feud . . .

Careful ShipLock, you're turning into Brian Gleichman.

The harsh reality of this is you are nothing to me but a screen-name attached to some usually laughably-stupid words on a website. Beyond what's posted here, your don't exist to me. The idea that I think of you as an "enemy," or that I think we have a "feud," completely misses the fact that I don't think of you at all.

Quote from: DavetheLost;931984Sorry to disappoint everyone who was hoping for a Battle of the Crusty Grognards Old School Throwdown Cage Match.

Pussies.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;932021The idea that I think of you as an "enemy," or that I think we have a "feud," completely misses the fact that I don't think of you at all.

Good, then let it go already, and never talk to or about me again. I'll return the favor.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;932035. . . never talk to or about me again.

Try to get this through your head: if I bring up something you wrote on the boards, it's because it's either a good example or a cautionary tale, no more, no less. You personally don't enter into it.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;932035I'll return the favor.

I don't for a moment give a fuck what you do or don't do.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;932039Try to get this through your head: if I bring up something you wrote on the boards, it's because it's either a good example or a cautionary tale, no more, no less. You personally don't enter into it.

Yeah, sure, a two-year-old thread that I just so happen to have started and that you pointlessly escalated into ugliness was absolutely the best example of this broadly-discussed principle that you could find on the internet. I'm sure that choice had absolutely nothing to do with my calling you a sexist asshole in another thread recently, no siree.

Face it, you're not the wise brahmin here. If you were, you would have dropped this whole thing several posts ago and gone on with your life.

Hey now...it's the Age of Trump. We're obliged to respond to every single tweet, regardless.:-)

Quote from: cranebump;932047Hey now...it's the Age of Trump. We're obliged to respond to every single tweet, regardless.:-)

Yet I'm pretty sure the first of them who can muster the willpower not to respond to the other one wins. :-)