I think it is more than a little pathetic that for all the usual outcry against how some storygamers treat DMs we have here posters solemnly declaring that why yes, it is ok and even the players right to treat the DM like a vend-bot slave.

Quote from: rgrove0172;942249Awesome, just awesome. Very well said, that last line.

Look, I don't agree with a lot of your style of play (badwrongfun, kthxbai!). And I think your questions are borderline twee trolling because this forum has been going on this carousel for months now. That said, your examples (unless I read into them the endless flame wars I am so desperately trying to forget) are perfectly serviceable to other outside readers as an example that campaign boundaries are perfectly normal and healthy things to have at your table.

That actually IS an interesting discussion (and so many here are dropping the ball hard to grind that axe).

And all things have boundaries, including sandboxes (in many ways especially sandboxes, due to the limits of: human processing, free time, and sheer human life span). It is an OK, healthy, and necessary conversation to have as equal, mature adults. Negotiating boundaries, compromises, and especially creative solutions!, is a social skill needed to develop good table management and table etiquette.

I mean, really, do we have to have the obvious conversation about every sandboxing GM is now expected to prepare for Dragonlance's planet Krynn existing and the potential of an interplanar/interplanetary kender dating service?

No. We all have limits. That's interesting. Let's talk about how we decide them, how we communicate them, and how we compromise them as GMs.

Quote from: rgrove0172;942023I suppose just to revisit the actual topic of the thread I would have to say "It depends"

I am pretty adept at generating content on the fly to better flesh out the setting, lend depth to NPCs, adjust to the decisions and actions of the Players but I do draw a line at some point if the players stretch the premise of the game too thin. If by their choice the plot would take off in a direction I deem beyond the limits of the game we intended to play, I call uncle. I don't want to run a completely random game where the players just run amok. Typically our games have a sort of assumed arc - even in long campaigns they are a series of arcs. Deviating completely from the current arc isn't heresy but it will no doubt postpone the game and perhaps end it.

As I was relating to one of the members in private...

A few years ago I ran a circa 1900 adventure in San Francisco. The game involved a murderous Chinese cult, supernatural elements, a mystery to solve etc. Had the players elected to take a ship to Shanghai I would have reminded them that the game was about the events in San Fran rather than fabricate some railroady reason they had to stay. If they had insisted I would have let them but called the game done until which time I was prepared to continue the adventure in the new direction..IF I even wanted to.

Quote from: rgrove0172;942147You guys continually spout off with limited and often incorrect information. Of course I considered the WHY, they had good reason but in the context of things a several months of sea travel and a visit in port across the world would no doubt allowed the developments in San Fran to progress to a point of no return. The game was about dealing with the immediate threat at that place and time. Globetrotting is fine if that what the game is designed around, we play "Leagues of Adventure" exactly that way but in this case such a drastic move would simply have ended the scenario. So as you said, before you started in on me, TIME WAS an issue and therefor the trip a deal killer. But that's not even entirely the point...
[...]

Quote from: CRKrueger;942254Very nice, however, do try to read what's actually there.  I'll help...
1. He admitted the players had a good reason to go to Shanghai...they were following up on the investigation, not opening a Pacific Rim Importers. So your "players dropping the premise argument" - yeah didn't happen.
2. He hasn't answered the question as to why the players got clues to go to Shanghai, but not apparently clues that the danger was eminent enough to not go to Shanghai.
3. Already admitted he *could* have let them follow up leads to Shanghai (which means the world wasn't going to end), he just didn't feel like it because he prepped San Fran.

Sounds like he overplayed or underplayed certain clues, or players just overemphasized the wrong thing in their investigation.  

Setting aside the adventures of MC Shanghai Grove...

Yeah I have played CoC, and yeah terrible things happened when people fuck up.  That's the problem with an End of the World scenario - It's pointless if everyone knows you don't have the guts to actually End.the.World.  If you don't want the players to leave Cormyr for Kara-Tur, you probably shouldn't drop clues then that the answer to how to save Cormyr lies in Kara-Tur.

I am not finding your bullet points in the posts you are talking about here. Are you reading things he shared from a different topic? Where are you getting all these presumptions I cannot find?

edit: And I'll be damned if I have to do IT Forensics to follow this merry-go-round through multiple topics. That shit's annoying and bad forum fu.

Quote from: cranebump;942255Video games are railroads.

And, as Krueger already explained, if you drop hints, don't he surprised when they get followed. I think your example doesn't fit the situation. You're talking about players randomly leaving the play area just because. Groves example evidently presented a hook.

It's all about control, obviously. You guys want control over the scenario. Or need it, evidently.

Just because my planet shows you a moon doesn't mean I am obliged visiting to accommodate you. Just because your PCs hear a rumor of an unreasonably distant land doesn't mean I am obliged visiting to accommodate you.

Sometimes the setting just has distant mysteries. Sometimes the NPCs just spout cloying but unreasonably impertinent stuff.

Quote from: Nexus;941872What does it mean?

A shitty sandbox!

Quote from: tenbones;942220See, this is where you're talking out of the side of your neck. The very things you say you "like" - are the things that I easily can produce in a sandbox-game. That's why your GMing is basic. The things you think are problems (as you've clearly indicated) are not actually problems to someone that actually knows how to run an honest sandbox game.

So yes it's very much a limitation of either your ability and/or your decision making processes. Otherwise we wouldn't even be talking about it. Right? The reason why you feel your concept of sandbox-games were lacking is simple: you don't know how to do them. If you did - or were honest about it, you'd simply say either:

1) I don't like sandbox games I like running modular storytime-adventures.
2) I'm trying to figure out how to manage my sandbox games more efficiently. Guys here's the situation.... .

But what you have is - Guys, I'm trying to run a storytime adventure and my players keep wanting to do things that's off my dot-to-dot plot-synopsis. The fact that your players, in this basic example said they wanted to go the Shanghai and, apparently put your underwear in a knot, shows they too are wanting to go beyond the confines of *your* story. They're sandboxing without you. Only you're not able to give them any real-estate to extend your tiny playground.




How is it a partnership when your only problem seems to be not allowing your players to explore the game? Exactly in what way is this a partnership? They aren't making up a story - YOU are. And we've been telling you for some time now, there is no story. The story is what the players DO. There are circumstances relating to the setting that you create, NPC's with motivations, etc. but the story is what emerges from the play. Anything else is storytime with dice and, yes, basic GMing.




I'm calling complete bullshit on this. Wanna know why? Because Shanghai doesn't apparently exist to you. The ramifications of going to Shanghai have zero consideration. The only consideration you've shown in your example is your self-absorbed clinging to *your* precious story. How do I know? Because your players wanna go to fucking Shanghai and you're on the internet bitching about it like it's some kind of problem. That's how I know.

If you knew how to run a sandbox game - you'd see this an opportunity (which I politely pointed out). And I gave you a more than reasonable answer on how you could expand things out and keep your precious story while letting them do some off-roading and who knows? Something awesome may come of it. Or nothing. Or they might die. Or they might live. Or it could be the best, most pivotal thing that ever happened to your game - but you'll never know because you're too busy working off a flow-chart.




Then why are they trying to go to Shanghai and why are you here complaining about it like it's a problem? And worse - you're making it sound like they are the problem, when it's fairly clear they arrived at that conclusion by whatever means your GMing led them to that. OR are we going with "They're a bunch of assholes"? Which is it?



I'm not sure I've ever said I've "mastered" GMing. I don't think I ever will, I and others here have been doing it so long that I'm pretty confident in my position that it's not something that is ever mastered. You can do it for a lifetime and you can learn best practices if you're honest and self-aware enough. But I'm not really sure what "mastery" is. I think that's for players to decide. I've said before in your threads where you've made this claim (which I've never said) about me - I'm never comfortable GMing. And I make sure I'm not comfortable because I'm always trying to learn new things. If I get too comfortable, I feel like I'm mailing it in. And I love the hobby a little too much to do that.

I also don't think I ever recall saying that anyone's love for GMing in any mode is somehow inferior to mine. I said your brand of GMing is *basic*. And I mean just that, because it is. Otherwise why are you posting these things as if they're real issues? Because they are, to *you*. They are not to *me*. And there is a factual reason for that. It's not rocket-science. I'm not even saying you're wrong. I'm saying there is a way to handle this without resorting to this bullshit crutch you use as your excuse for GMing "privilege". But it requires some honesty.

And that's where the real problem is. You're so defensive you've concocted all this stuff in your head (granted, BV is a lot more aggressive than me but we're saying the same thing) that somehow you've taken these many threads where I've said your "GMing is basic" to mean I'm saying you're a lesser human for it. Nope. I'm very specific about what I'm saying on purpose. That *YOU* have taken your admitted limited experiences relative to ours, as some kind of aspect of your identity and find insult at the very factual notion, makes the problem *yours*.

There are people that love, Love, LOVE story-time adventures. You're pretending that's not what you're doing. Or you have some cognitive dissonance at play here that you refuse to see how your own examples underscore that fact every single time. Otherwise why are you having these problems you're having?

Or is that just propaganda too? heh

Yeah, I agree with that. But since we're not going to change Grove into Gronan (his players are the only onesto stand a chance at some change), much as we'd like to, can we at least stop making all the GMing threads about him?

I mean, he's not a sandboxer, his freeform approach to GMing is virtually missing, now can we please talk how to be better at improvising, instead of how much he sucks at it?

Quote from: Opaopajr;942321I am not finding your bullet points in the posts you are talking about here. Are you reading things he shared from a different topic? Where are you getting all these presumptions I cannot find?

Dude, you quoted it yourself...

Quote from: rgrove0172;942147Of course I considered the WHY, they had good reason but in the context of things a several months of sea travel and a visit in port across the world would no doubt allowed the developments in San Fran to progress to a point of no return.

Two pieces of information there...
1. They had good reason...where did they get the idea to go to Shanghai?  From Grove of course, where else?  If they were going to try and break into the Opium Trade, I don't think Grove would have classified it as "a good reason".
2. There was a time limit they were either unaware of, or didn't realize the severity of.  Where would they have gotten that vital piece of information?  From Grove of course, where else?
They got info #1, and did not get info #2.  Someone, perhaps everyone, erred.

Quote from: rgrove0172;942149Which of course could be made interesting with cool ports of call, drama aboard the ship and other sideline action, but its not the game we came to play.

and there's the trifecta...
3. He could have taken them to Shanghai and continued the adventure, he just didn't want to, presumably because the players thinking going to Shanghai was either a misrepresentation of clues he gave, or a misinterpretation of clues by the players, or a combination of the two...and since it's Grove we're talking about, the fact that Shanghai wasn't "Mah Storeh" factored in some as well.

Quote from: Opaopajr;942321And I'll be damned if I have to do IT Forensics to follow this merry-go-round through multiple topics. That shit's annoying and bad forum fu.

Multiple topics?  It was all in the single post you quoted.  You're just so riled about the mistaken assumption that people are advocating GM's being a ScreenMonkey that you're in Opa Opa Smash mode.

You're not the only one who is completely missing the point, Omega's not getting it either...

Quote from: Omega;942319I think it is more than a little pathetic that for all the usual outcry against how some storygamers treat DMs we have here posters solemnly declaring that why yes, it is ok and even the players right to treat the DM like a vend-bot slave.

Guys...
Letting the players go where their ideas lead them has NOTHING to do with serving the players...it's upholding the integrity of the setting and the game as whole.  It's keeping the neutral, verisimilar nature of the world legitimate.  Yeah, you can track down a lead to Shanghai...and when you come back the ritual will be done, Lo Pan will have won, and Chinatown is now something out of Big Trouble in Little China, and the Furies are coming for you...enjoy.

It's about holding the players accountable for their choices, even if they fuck things up wholesale, but letting them make those choices.

Quote from: Opaopajr;942317It's an issue of bait & switch of expectations, and those expectations should be clearly discussed like adults beforehand.

If I as a GM say I am offering something, then null all your PC stuff and force you into another I wanted all along, that's not what was agreed upon. It would be reasonable to expect upset, re-negotiation, and consequences for breach (like walking away). Similarly the expectation works the other way.

If Vampire PCs for a proposed Modern game gathered and their first response is to all willfully go into torpor and wait 100 years so they can play Cyberpunk Vampires! for that sweet, sweet techie gear list, is there not a similar breach in expectations? Is the GM obliged to cater to whims through passive aggressive table manipulation?

No. We are expecting mature, communicating adults. The issue is trust, breach, and the re-negotiation & consequences thereof.

The table contract is not there for when things go right, but for when things go sour. And the responsible thing is to pull out of passive-aggressive In Character push and pulling, and hash it out OOC to find where the disconnect is. We are sharing time with each other in imagination land, not playing power exchange games.

Everything you say here is good...BUT...not applicable to Operation Shanghai.  That wasn't players being dicks because they felt like it, that was a miscommunication of facts somewhere along the way that led to the characters operating under some seriously false assumptions.  Grove decided to come clean and correct it OOC, which is certainly one way to do it, especially since it sounds like he goofed as much as the players there.  No harm, no foul.  

Operation Shanghai in the Grove Files is no longer filed under "Mah Storeh", just cross-referenced.

Quote from: Opaopajr;942323Just because my planet shows you a moon doesn't mean I am obliged visiting to accommodate you. Just because your PCs hear a rumor of an unreasonably distant land doesn't mean I am obliged visiting to accommodate you.

Sometimes the setting just has distant mysteries. Sometimes the NPCs just spout cloying but unreasonably impertinent stuff.

Well, okay, but the example of the moon is more extreme than the example of China/SF.  

My main issue with the GM side of this argument is that this is not the game we came to play looks more like this is the game I came to run. I'm all for some agreeable limits, but "I before we" isn't one of them.

QuoteGuys...
Letting the players go where their ideas lead them has NOTHING to do with serving the players...it's upholding the integrity of the setting and the game as whole. It's keeping the neutral, verisimilar nature of the world legitimate. Yeah, you can track down a lead to Shanghai...and when you come back the ritual will be done, Lo Pan will have won, and Chinatown is now something out of Big Trouble in Little China, and the Furies are coming for you...enjoy.

It's about holding the players accountable for their choices, even if they fuck things up wholesale, but letting them make those choices.

This.

Quote from: Opaopajr;942317It's an issue of bait & switch of expectations, and those expectations should be clearly discussed like adults beforehand.

If I as a GM say I am offering something, then null all your PC stuff and force you into another I wanted all along, that's not what was agreed upon. It would be reasonable to expect upset, re-negotiation, and consequences for breach (like walking away). Similarly the expectation works the other way.

If Vampire PCs for a proposed Modern game gathered and their first response is to all willfully go into torpor and wait 100 years so they can play Cyberpunk Vampires! for that sweet, sweet techie gear list, is there not a similar breach in expectations? Is the GM obliged to cater to whims through passive aggressive table manipulation?

No. We are expecting mature, communicating adults. The issue is trust, breach, and the re-negotiation & consequences thereof.

The table contract is not there for when things go right, but for when things go sour. And the responsible thing is to pull out of passive-aggressive In Character push and pulling, and hash it out OOC to find where the disconnect is. We are sharing time with each other in imagination land, not playing power exchange games.

I generally agree with this. But let me toss in some "meta-GMing" caveats... if you'll indulge me.

So one of my "things" is that I try to keep everything in-game. I assume the responsibility of trying to allow for my PC's to get as much wrong or right about the clues they discover to come to whatever conclusion they come to. I tend to do a *lot* of setup before a campaign to check the list off all the points you made above - but once the game starts, it's started. It's extremely rare for me to pull the curtain back and reveal myself because a player is "doing it wrong". The only time I do that is when a player is so grotesquely off the reservation where we've gone beyond just "gaming" and it's turned into something personal. Fortunately this is extremely rare.

So we're both on the same page. The difference here that I've been trying to illustrate, is one of tolerance-level. Not in terms of what the PC's are/are not allowed to do - but in terms of GMing writ-large. This is why I advocate strongly for learning how to sandbox. It's not to say you *can't* do one-shot linear dot-to-dot adventures. Absolutely. I'm saying that sandboxing well encompasses that more basic style so that even your basic mode of storygaming can benefit from understanding how to sandbox. I have no problem putting a themepark module-adventure in the middle of my sandbox for the PC's to discover (and subsequently ruin through their own bizarre conclusions) - I just play the ball where it lands.

There is far less pulling the curtain back. Far less revealing those artificial invisible walls where you're forced to have these unnecessary issues. It's not a problem of being the personal bitch for the players - it's about you owning the results of whatever conclusions the players come up with based on your handling of the game. The corollary of which is learning how to skillfully deal with it without being acrimonious towards your players for coming up with some conclusion that you as the GM did not intend for them, but owning it anyhow with consequences being whatever they may be.

That's just my perspective.

Getting back on topic -

Improvisation for me comes easy. Generally less so for my players, but I'm always trying to pull them in. I encourage questions for details in a given scene so that when they ask me about something, it will often be a good prompt for my own brain to fill in things I may not have considered. On a tactical level, I don't necessarily change things for my NPC's but I might in favor of the PC's if they were the ones who asked about the detail I didn't consider.

For example- If the PC's were quietly investigating the harbor at a particular ship and I had planned an ambush from above from the ship in dry-dock. I might give a description of how the harbor lanterns are guttering, there's a light fog (which would give the PC's some obscurement bonuses), if one of the PC's ask - "Is there any cover? Maybe rigging coiled up in huge loops, or crates/barrels?" I'll toss them in there, because it's totally plausible, OR if I think for the purposes of the encounter the NPC's are smart enough to clear such obvious environmental bonuses I'll decide on the spot 'no'. But I'll let the PC's make notice-checks or whatever and they might realize the area they're in is the *only* place where crates and rigging aren't piled up thereby alerting them to the possibility that there is something afoot. This gives them more opportunities to decide how to proceed - or not.

It builds tension and puts the options of how this potential encounter will proceed. Likewise if the PC's hesitate - I'll make whatever rolls necessary (if such is the case) to determine what the NPC's interpret about the PC's actions, assuming they even realized the PC's were there. Then things unfold accordingly.

I don't ever assume an encounter is a rote thing. I try to give my players as many options as their PC's can handle via their contacts, skills, stats etc. and of course the player's own ingenuity. It keeps me on my toes and I like that, it's help me develop good improvisational skills while in-play and generally creates good tension-and-release for the player who enjoy seeing their plans/schemes/strategies put into play, regardless if they succeed or fail.

Quote from: CRKrueger;942346Guys...
Letting the players go where their ideas lead them has NOTHING to do with serving the players...it's upholding the integrity of the setting and the game as whole.  It's keeping the neutral, verisimilar nature of the world legitimate.  Yeah, you can track down a lead to Shanghai...and when you come back the ritual will be done, Lo Pan will have won, and Chinatown is now something out of Big Trouble in Little China, and the Furies are coming for you...enjoy.

If the players agreed to play "explore haunted house." and then promptly say fuck you and burn it. Then that is not upholding their end of the agreement. Therein lies the problem. It is the same as a DM pitching Ghost Tower of Iverness and the players going "sure sounds great" and then showing up and taking off for who knows where that isnt said tower.

Very different from say Keep on the Borderlands where the PCs are free to roam the area and hopefully deal with that pesky cave system wayyyyy over there. Or any given more open ended investigative session. There still might be tries at being cute. But theres usually alot more leeway too go wherever even if there are still some vague borders.

So yes. It can end up with the players either fucking with the DM or treating them like a slave to dispense EXP at their command.

I do though agree very much that players can end up following some odd logic paths with the clues given and if you dont want them sending their characters off to the other side of the world then make sure the players are aware of time constraints, world in motion, or even simple logistics involved.  Otherwise you are inviting potential unexpected side trips that can totally derail the current adventure.

If I tell the players/PCs "and these runes you see on the walls of this tomb are somewhat similar to those used by the fabled serpent people said to live in the jungles to the far south." then I have at least thought of the possibility the players will decide to stop exploring the tomb and head south to look up these serpent people for advice.

Quote from: Opaopajr;942320We all have limits. That's interesting. Let's talk about how we decide them, how we communicate them, and how we compromise them as GMs.

Okay.

The sandbox for our Boot Hill campaign is El Dorado County, the setting included in the core rules. In addition to agreeing on the boundary on our sandbox, we decided to run the five published modules as the campaign background events. Right off the bat we had to modify this - there are no railroads in El Dorado County yet, so Mad Mesa was relocated to Kansas and played as a sort of 'prequel' to the rest of the adventures. The events of Ballots & Bullets and Range War! form the central action of the campaign, but at no time are any of us bound to play The Adventure - my character got run out of Dead Mule by the vigilantes and missed most of Lost Conquistador Mine - which was never completed - while my character was the only one to see Burned Bush Wells all the way through. Ballots & Bullets  and Range War! are what's going on in the background of the campaign, the 'living setting,' and we are free to interact with them or not as we see fit.

My character - or characters, now that we've moved into troupe play - planned to run a cattle drive pretty much from the giddyup, so that meant our sandbox boundary was going to need to stretch a bit to accommodate this - driving a herd to the county line and calling it a day wasn't in the cards. Thus it was we needed a way to handle the cattle drive to Dodge City, which was provided by rules published in Variant magazine a few decades ago and adapting Dodge City from Gunslingers: Wild West Action!. My characters are in Dodge right now, actually, after seven weeks on the trail, bringing in the herd through thunderstorms, deep river crossings, a brush fire and a Comanche raid.

There are a couple of lessons to be drawn here. First, what you prep is important. We knew a cattle drive was likely to take place, based on my character's inclination and vocation, so we had the resources in place to run it. With randomizers, drop-in resources and a couple of warm neurons, a competent referee should be able to improvise enough to keep up with engaged players making the setting and the campaign their own. Fucking think ahead about what you introduce and where it might lead the players, then prep for that.

Second, players engaged with the setting are pearls beyond price, and telling them, 'No, you only cannot go any further than this because I'm such a limp-dick I can't improvise for ninety minutes,' when they're running with logical inferences and a desire to explore is the nadir of refereeing. Hell, saying, 'Yeah, I need a few minutes/an hour/a couple of days to get my shit together,' is better than, 'Fuck you and your excitement about the game, you go where I fucking say you go.'

Remember, we're not talking about players trying to fuck with the campaign out of boredom or spite, or circle-jerking on the campaign premise - those people can fuck straight off. We're talking about players so into the campaign that they're hungry for more, and being told, 'Sorry, I can't be bothered to go back to the kitchen,' makes you a puckered brown-eye.

Quote from: Omega;942362If the players agreed to play "explore haunted house." and then promptly say fuck you and burn it. Then that is not upholding their end of the agreement.

I agree.  Agreeing to do a one-shot and then fuck the premise is just dickery.

Quote from: Omega;942362Therein lies the problem. It is the same as a DM pitching Ghost Tower of Iverness and the players going "sure sounds great" and then showing up and taking off for who knows where that isnt said tower.

Yeah, except the best way to mitigate that is to not say "How about we get together next weekend for Ghost Tower of Inverness".  Instead, the Tower is in the campaign, and the players organically go there through the choices of their characters, not because OOC "We agreed" to anything.

Quote from: Omega;942362So yes. It can end up with the players either fucking with the DM or treating them like a slave to dispense EXP at their command.

Shit players are shit players.  Non-shit players aren't.  What's the point in discussing anything if we assume assholes and the LCD?

Quote from: Omega;942362I do though agree very much that players can end up following some odd logic paths with the clues given and if you dont want them sending their characters off to the other side of the world then make sure the players are aware of time constraints, world in motion, or even simple logistics involved.  Otherwise you are inviting potential unexpected side trips that can totally derail the current adventure.

If I tell the players/PCs "and these runes you see on the walls of this tomb are somewhat similar to those used by the fabled serpent people said to live in the jungles to the far south." then I have at least thought of the possibility the players will decide to stop exploring the tomb and head south to look up these serpent people for advice.

That's where I think Grove goofed, he dropped Shanghai and obviously didn't expect them to go there.

Quote from: Omega;942362If the players agreed to play "explore haunted house." and then promptly say fuck you and burn it. Then that is not upholding their end of the agreement. Therein lies the problem.

Except we don't play "explore haunted house". We play "dealing with the haunted house issue".

Quote from: CRKrueger;942365Yeah, except the best way to mitigate that is to not say "How about we get together next weekend for Ghost Tower of Inverness".  Instead, the Tower is in the campaign, and the players organically go there through the choices of their characters, not because OOC "We agreed" to anything.

Yeah, this, unless I'm running a PbP game;).