Quote from: S'mon;709163Edit: 4e D&D seemed deliberately designed to make sandboxing impossible, stripping out all content generation tools such as random encounter tables and treasure tables, and requiring tailored encounters far more than ever 3e. The reaction against 4e seems to be bringing a return to a more open play style. 5e certainly talks about 'adventuring' more, but I don't know yet if it will support 1e style sandboxing.

Painful, but feels true. Currently re-reading Keep on the Shadowfell for something worth gleaning. I do like some things, like clean organization, the *idea* of recommended tactics, etc., but the verbose presentation, suggested "order" for "balance" among encounters, etc. feels like a let down.

I'm currently trying to reverse engineer the # of kobolds and goblins so as to make a pool of them for wandering monster tables. However I have a perverse fear that even seeding a black bear upon the table will turn into a 2+ hour epic battle to the death (while the bear tries desperately to run away). I know that if I remove the read-aloud text I could easily cut the module 10+ pages, though.

As a fruitful thought experiment I might be better off just working on something else, I think.

Quote from: Opaopajr;709187Painful, but feels true. Currently re-reading Keep on the Shadowfell for something worth gleaming. I do like some things, like clean organization, the *idea* of recommended tactics, etc., but the verbose presentation, suggested "order" for "balance" among encounters, etc. feels like a let down.

I'm currently trying to reverse engineer the # of kobolds and goblins so as to make a pool of them for wandering monster tables. However I have a perverse fear that even seeding a black bear upon the table will turn into a 2+ hour epic battle to the death (while the bear tries desperately to run away). I know that if I remove the read-aloud text I could easily cut the module 10+ pages, though.

As a fruitful thought experiment I might be better off just working on something else, I think.

For wandering monsters in 4e dungeons, a good trick is just to use the encounter groups from the less interesting rooms. If the PCs defeat them in a random encounter then the room is empty when reached. Otherwise there's an (eg) 3 in 6 chance the room is empty when reached.
That way you're not slowing things down any more than the already near-glacial pace (my 6-PC 4e group is 16th level and takes around 3 hours for a serious fight, a full evening session).

Quote from: atpollard;709083OK, so I've heard lots of theory and split a few hairs with some of you over definitions and semantics ... now for some practical application to clarify this stuff in my mind.

From one of the PBP games on this site:



So are these players creating a story, roll-playing, role playing, or engaged in some sort of collective narrative storytelling?

FWIW, it looks like 'fun' to me.

I'd prefer to take an example of mine.

Here's the start of my PbP Ptolus AD&D game on the RPG Site.

What I can say for sure is that when I am writing this:

Quote from: Benoist;418385“Year 431 of the Imperial Age. It had been nearly 500 years since the armies of Ghul, the Skull King, the Half God, ruled the lands today under the dominion of the Lion-guarded Throne with armies born out of fire and darkness. In time, just as storms finally come to pass, so did this age of pain. The Great Empire of Tarsis rose out of its ashes, and peace came to Palastan. As the new city of Ptolus grew in the shadow of the Spire, rumours of great riches underground spread throughout the region. A new generation of would-be heroes made its way to the area, in search for gold and glory…”
– The Praemal Tales.

You have been waiting for quite some time now. How long it has been is rather hard to tell. The night is well advanced. It would be nigh impossible to spot the moons or stars in this wretched weather, anyway. You hear the rain slam against the roof of the inn, and occasionally see a sudden flash of lightning contrast everything in the room in shades of black and white. Water is pouring out of the gutters outside like dozens of small waterfalls drowned into an ocean of wind and fury.

Nice welcome, to be sure. You wonder if this is usual weather for the area. Whether you arrived to the city gates, were thrown out of a tavern after some trouble was stirred, or you finally made it to port through the storm, none of you could really escape the very common surprise visitors express once they spot the Spire. It is so tall, so huge; it dominates the landscape in such a way as to make it impossible to miss, even in this awful weather. Had you been able to see beyond the heavy clouds now covering the sky, it would still have been imposing enough to hide a great number of celestial bodies from your sight.

Lightning again, followed a few seconds later by the very low growl of thunder rolling high above. You remember making your way to the city. You remember spotting the camps of various delvers scattered throughout the landscape, away from the Imperial eyes guarding the fortress of Dalenguard and the Church looking upon such activities with a patronizing disdain so characteristic of Lothian’s prelates. Some of the constructions were already made of stone, some using ruins left from the times of Ghul to build around a home for themselves, while others started from scratch, using the characteristic mix of stonework foundations and lumber for upper levels that made Palastani houses so distinct. There were of course many tents around as well, most of them owned by newcomers who were, like yourselves, called to that part of the world to strike it rich, and fast.

That’s when you found the kids. Or rather, that’s when they found you. They were little beggars sent to search for volunteers. Dangerous job, they said. Everything would be explained once you met the boss. A warm meal and fresh ale would be provided.

You followed them, and that’s of course how you ended up here. In this tavern, or chapel, judging by the coloured glass above your heads – what was the name again? The “Gold Ladder”, was it? You can easily figure out why the “Ladder”, judging by the enormous 20-foot wide hole in the floor behind the bar (what’s with all the ropes and equipment stored near that well, exactly?). As for the “Gold” part well, you sure hoped the coin would be there to prove it.

Everything is clean and pristine here but for a thin layer of dust covering the tables and counters. It doesn’t seem like the tavern was ever open, though it does feel abandoned for some unknown reason. It is too nice in here. Too damn quiet. You throw a look at your chaperon waiting like you for his boss to come back. A geriatric dwarf with a long white beard and ice cold blue eyes, as it were. He seems weary and tired, though you can see he is hiding it to make it seem like he would be able to take you all in a fight if he had to. Ah! Dwarves: the more these guys grow old and weak, the more they stay the same.

You keep on waiting, and look at the assortment of “heroes” gathered in this room…

I am starting from an out of the game perspective, first providing context to what's to come (the actual game that hasn't begun yet), then setting up the starting situation of the game for the players as their characters to get a sense of how they came to this place, what this place and the city around look and feel like, and from there, I give them the ball to start interacting with the world. This is what actually starts the game, and from there, it is played in the now of the situation. It is not storytelling.

Quote from: winkingbishop;418425Friar Othos enters the building, escaping the downpour.  Behind him, one or two humanoid shapes still linger behind.  In his sodden state, the friar's rough robe exaggerates his bulky shape; the dwarf is stout and plump even for his race.  As he makes his way towards the "bar" his long strides cause his tin begging cup to clang noisily against a humble cooking pot.  It would almost be comical were it not such an obvious ruse: His armor is clearly visible through the damp and a vicious morning star comes swinging loose as he adjusts his belt.

Approaching the bar, Friar Othos nods to the hooded figure but turns his attention to the aging dwarf.  He addresses him in Dwarven:

(Dwarven) "May the Builder bless you and your kin.  I am Othos Stoneshield, Fourth of my name.  I wonder if you might tell me something about this structure?"

Quote from: thedungeondelver;418428A heavily muscled individual wearing a travel-stained robe with wet cloak thrown over his brawny shoulders sits at the head of the table in the lower-left-hand corner of the room (as you look at the map).  Around the table sits a party of workingmen; one is carefully sorting through a pile of torches, flasks, candles and a tinderbox, checking them all to ensure that the wrappings are still dry.  Likewise, the other two pass a length of rope across the table, making sure it's hempen knots are at least undamaged by the water.  Two armed-and-armored spearmen watch over the pile of gear in the corner behind.

Ylarum scans the room, on the lookout for the prospective employer.

"Wait here, lads.  I'll see if friend dwarf barkeep knows who we might be seeking.  Liir, Dallow, Snave, make room - Tarm, Json, bring chairs 'round."

When he approaches the bar and spies the dwarven holy servant and barman speaking together, he bows - still keeping his eyes up, however.

"Father.  Ostler.  Pray forgive my interruption, but I and my retinue yonder were told to come here, to seek employ.  Do you know of anyone arriving, or indeed are you looking for sell-swords?"

Quote from: Benoist;418440Clearly, the dwarf did understand what Otho told him in his own language. Considering his question carefully, he simply points out in Common: "I am Cadfan."

He sighs. "This is the Gold Ladder, lad. A place for you to dine, drink and enjoy the company of others like you. Of course, it is a temple of Ollom, God of the Keg, a place where you can get access to whatever is down below, and get supplies for your trips, should you need some, as well. But don't go around telling that to them good men of the Church. Can't say they really approve of other gods and delvers settling within the city walls, if you get my meaning."

He winks at Otho, and then addresses Ylarum after he approached the bar and asked his question. "My mistress will be back soon. She will explain everything, though we are indeed looking for some fine young representatives of the 'adventuring' kind, that is a matter of fact."

That is role playing to me. Not storytelling.

PS: I need to point out something that might not be readily clear, but I was completely okay with the players starting the game by saying to Cadfan that waiting in this room just stinks and that if the mistress really wanted their help she could find them back easy enough and leave. There's other stuff going in town, and just saying "fuck that shit" to this introduction into the game would have, in itself, gotten the ball rolling in a different direction. So there was no obligation whatsoever to accept or not the mistress's offer (which comes later in the thread - the wait lasts a while, the time for the player's characters to properly introduce themselves to each other, as it were).

Part of the problem seems to be how some players define storytelling or story at all. Which leads to much confusion when someone even mentions the subject.

Random snippets of more coherent arguments.
These are just examples of how outsiders and insiders can end up looking at the subject for good or ill. Some people have a fairly open mind on the whole thing.

BGG recent about a space board game.

QuoteAnd RPG is, first and foremost, about storytelling. That's the "role" part of "roleplaying." Players take on the roles of characters in the game in order to tell their characters' stories. The emphasis in an RPG is the story of the game.

SJG recent. This one went back and fourth without going off the tracks when last glanced at it.

QuoteAnd that is playing a game by narrating the actions and speaking the dialogue of imagined people in an imagined world. The narration and dialogue are the raw material of which stories are made, so at least in a trivial sense, we are producing a story when we play rpgs.

Some not so coherent

BGG some years back discussing why RPGs arent games I believe. Leading up to the formation of RPGG.

QuoteRPGs are by design formless, intended to give as many players as possible whatever it is that they're looking for.

Looking at it from a "boardgaming" perspective, they're barely games at all in that sense, at least not in a sense you could bound them.

RPGs are, essentially, "Story Time With Rules Attached That Sometimes Players Ignore or Embelish".

BGG recent. Not a direct quote as cant find the entry now. But close enough.

QuoteRPGs are a subset of storytelling.

Where does your avatar come from S'mon? It's pretty cool.

Quote from: One Horse Town;709240Where does your avatar come from S'mon? It's pretty cool.

I think it's Boris Vallejo illustrating "Priest Kings of Gor" or similar.

Quote from: S'mon;709244I think it's Boris Vallejo illustrating "Priest Kings of Gor" or similar.

Correct, cover for Priest Kings of Gor

Quote from: atpollard;708733Could someone explain to me what is so terrible about an adventure that tells a story?

The same thing that's so terrible about the 1919 World Series "telling a story" instead of being an earnestly played game.

Quote from: atpollard;708792I mean if you cast a broad enough net, everything can be called railroading ... "Why do I have to adventure in Greyhawk? You are railroading my dwarf into your preconceived universe."

And if you cast a broad enough net, anything can be called storytelling: "What an awesome shared narrative that Fire in the East game was! The thrilling story of that one 2-6 infantry unit holding the hex against the odds was right up there with the best of Shakespeare or Steinbeck, eh?"

So, if we're going to have a sensible conversation, we need to stick in good faith to commonly accepted meanings rather than go out of our way to warp them.

Quote from: Sommerjon;708799Do your sandboxes use time?  Do things happen in your sandboxes as direct results of the actions or inaction of the PCs?  If yes to either of those questions, you got yourself plot.

Not as anyone I know uses the term! That's just events happening. I don't know anyone who speaks of his commute to work as a "plot," and a greater resemblance to such real life emergent histories is the significant difference between an RPG and (say) Settlers of Catan. Who speaks of a "plot" in Settlers, or Risk, or Monopoly, etc.?

Bottom line, as Benoist pointed out: There's nothing wrong with it, if that's what you happen to like. FRP is just a pastime, after all.

Quote from: Omega;709224Part of the problem seems to be how some players define storytelling or story at all. Which leads to much confusion when someone even mentions the subject.

Random snippets of more coherent arguments.
These are just examples of how outsiders and insiders can end up looking at the subject for good or ill. Some people have a fairly open mind on the whole thing.

BGG recent about a space board game.


SJG recent. This one went back and fourth without going off the tracks when last glanced at it.


Some not so coherent

BGG some years back discussing why RPGs arent games I believe. Leading up to the formation of RPGG.


BGG recent. Not a direct quote as cant find the entry now. But close enough.

great post indicating some of the differences on the topic.

In the end as we have said many times it comes down to semanttics and the need for some people to draw a time on what is clearly a spectrum of activites and interpretations.

A bunch get together playing in character describing what their characters do and interacting with an imaginary world.
That can describe everything from fac fic to Arkham Horror.

So we add so RPG elemtnes to clarify

A bunch of people each playing their own character describing what their characters do and how they interact with an imaginary world created and managed by one of them who also acts as refere, interpreter of the rules of the world and the players interface to it.

But then we are afraid that Swinish  elements will try to use this to their own goals so we add some caveats, can't let those pesky narritivists sneak in....

A bunch of people each playing their own character describing what their characters do in a way that is limited by what those characters can do in and of their own skills and abilities and how they interact with an imaginary world created and managed by the refere, who is the interpreter of the rules of the world and the players interface to it and is the only one allowed to create, define or modify content of the world through any other agency than that available to the characters in and of themselves.


But now that excludes a bunch of games that are clearly not 'storygames'.

Etc etc ....

So I reckon a bunch of folks sitting round playing make believe in a world of their own imagination can be called storytelling and if that is terrible swinsh then , oink , oink

Quote from: Spinachcat;709096There is a tiny fraction of players who truly dislike railroading, some faction doesn't like obvious CRPG-style railroading, but it works fine for the majority of gamers. Otherwise, we would not have seen the decade upon decade popularity of published of organized play and published adventures.

The "popularity" of sandbox gaming is mostly internet bullshit. The vast majority of campaigns are set up by GMs with a sense of beginning, middle and end and the vast majority of gamers want that.

Wow.  That's pretty assertive, dismissive, and arrogant.

Of course there are people that like railroading.  And of course they gravitate to things like organized play and published modules, because those styles of play almost, by definition, *have to* be built upon railroading.

Also, modern versions of D&D have focused on builds and tactics pretty heavily, and so kind of select for people whose primary interests are builds and tactics.  So there may be some self-fulfilling prophecy going on there as well.

OTOH, people that like sandbox gaming won't be drawn to organized play, and won't be generally visible.  So really getting stats on the size of each group is pretty difficult.

Quote from: robiswrong;709532OTOH, people that like sandbox gaming won't be drawn to organized play, and won't be generally visible.  So really getting stats on the size of each group is pretty difficult.

Believe it or not, there are people who not only "like both kinds of music, Country and Western," but are just plain gamers who enjoy a wide variety of games.

"Organized play" or "tournaments" is just a subset of the broader category of scenarios that stand as games on their own, quite divorced from a "campaign" context of any sort. This kind of thing goes back to early D&D popularity, beyond that to Chainmail and Braunstein, beyond that to Little Wars....

I've run a couple of very tightly structured scenarios of my own devising.

One was indeed rather a story-telling experiment. In the event, all I needed to do to achieve the expected story was push the players' psychological buttons with carefully chosen stimuli (helped by its being in the comicbook superhero genre); there was no need to "fudge" any outcomes. Of course, the more numerous and precise the specified elements of the story had been, the greater the likelihood that player choice or chance would produce a notably different pattern of events.

The other was like In The Dungeons of the Slave Lords or Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, in that the players started trapped in a situation with a time limit on escape. This was very much a gauntlet, essentially a series of games in different worlds.

Quote from: The Traveller;708863Oh yeah, as Zak S memorably put it with regard to storygames which weren't really that narrative, specifically Luke Crane's Torchbearer, "Luke took these games where you can do anything and said, hey wouldn't it be great if you were limited to only being able to do a few things instead!", or words to that effect.

That pretty much sums it up; though of course, that's the point of view of a roleplayer.

The thing is, this is why Storygamers are NOT Roleplayers; because this is not how they're looking at it; rather, they're thinking "Look, there's these games that don't do what we want them to do, wouldn't it be great if we could remake them so they do what we want and only what we want!"

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