Quote from: -E.;982822I sometimes forget that.



:: reads next few posts before replying ::

I'm sigged! I'm sigged! I'm famous!

:: runs around room ::
-E.

It's a shoddy prize but you won my internet today.

Quote from: Dumarest;982825Yes, please share, I've never heard of this game and frankly I don't know what people mean by a narrative or storytelling game unless they mean we're going to sit around and Round Robin what happens next.

I saw what you did there.

Quote from: Brand55;982838Finally, and perhaps the most outright narrative element, is something introduced with the GM's resource book called montages. In a typical game like D&D, when a journey happens the GM may have some encounters prepared or might roll randomly to see if the party runs into random stuff. This is done in 13th Age as well, but the GM is also encouraged to periodically use a montage. In a montage, the GM asks one of the players to present a problem that arises on the journey. The player to that person's left then narrates how he or she overcame that problem and presents a new one, and the cycle continues around the group so that the party (not the GM) collectively tells the story of their travel and the difficulties that they faced.

I'm not sure how well this activity would go in practice but it sounds a lot better to try to implement this than the One Unique Thing.

Quote from: Bren;982856I'm not sure how well this activity would go in practice but it sounds a lot better to try to implement this than the One Unique Thing.

It really just comes down to the group. Some would love it and have no problem, while other players would struggle with coming up with interesting tales or try to kill their first ancient dragon at 1st level. Ultimately, though, it's nice because groups who like it have it as a tool to use and those who don't can easily ignore it.

OUTs are a little trickier. I outright disallow truly insane stuff ("No, you can't play an elder demon just pretending to be a lowly human paladin to infiltrate the Golden Order. Again.") without a really good reason, and I'll veto stuff that clashes with my view of the world. No elf genocide on my watch. As long as you're upfront with the players about your expectations regarding the game and how much leeway they have, their shouldn't be too many problems. And for those who are fine with turning the players loose and seeing what craziness transpires, they have that option as well.

Seems a bit loosey goosey. My mate/player James would abuse the crap out of this.

If I let him.

The thread has been great, tons of good info. I have one last question I'd appreciate clarification on. In this post

 - [post deleted, my apologies - it referenced the recycling of game elements not used in a given session to a later time.)

The potential to recycle unused campaign material is mentioned. I assume that means moving a temple or something from an area not visited in the game to one that will be. Am I wrong? If I'm not then how exactly is that different from railroading?  

I ask because while I might nudge players in a given direction I would never move something or reuse something once it's part of the setting. The former is not desirable but permissible sometimes while the other just feels like cheating. My opinion of course.

I would never move something; it is cheating.  Now if the players are hunting for rumors, and I think this Temple of the Eager Virgin is a real cool adventure site, I might have rumors keep popping up.

And if your players aren't hunting for rumors in a sandbox, they should be.

Well sure but am I hearing that if the GM jotted down some ideas for a sea cave and the players never bite...he would keep the idea and present it again next time they are near the coast..elsewhere? That sounds like recycling to me, or similarly with a specific idea for an NPC. The party never meets the Tinkerer so he gets shelved until the next village etc.

Quote from: rgrove0172;982887The potential to recycle unused campaign material is mentioned. I assume that means moving a temple or something from an area not visited in the game to one that will be. Am I wrong? If I'm not then how exactly is that different from railroading?

I don't think I was seeing the link quite right. But moving a temple doesn't seem like the sort of thing I would do. Maybe back when I was in 8th or 9th grade when I thought I was really clever too I would do something like that. Now it's more like, if I've created this temple, and players didn't go there, I'd imagine there'd be a good number of features that a lot of temples might share in common. Secret escape passage for the high priest. An altar. A crypt beneath the temple. Cloisters. That sort of thing. The high priests of all these temples would probably be roughly in the same level range. The number of temple members might vary a little more, but still within a certain range. There'll probably still be temple protectors, but it might be Paladins in one the temple of the sun, Rangers in the temple of the moon, Assassins in the temple of Shadows, and Berserkers in the temple of gloom. In the temple of balance, regular fighters, but the priests are druids instead of clerics. There might be different pets depending on the terrain, culture, or deity. So if I didn't get to use the temple of the wolf, there's always the temple of the gargoyle, temple of the snake, temple of the scorpion, and temple of the spider.

I've read some "GM advice" that is all about just reskinning. That's a bit of an extreme, to just reskin everything. I feel with different skin should be some different mechanical impact. Wolf jaws lock, snakes constrict, spider webs entrap, scropions deliver poison, the gargoyle can fly and breath some funky stuff. And I feel the gargoyle's stone makeup should give it more defensive capacity, the scorpion's exoskeleton the second most, and so on. Enough has changed so your choice not to go to the temple of the wolf matters, even if you just end up at the temple of the gargoyle. But you still get to recycle quite a bit.

Quote from: rgrove0172;982899Well sure but am I hearing that if the GM jotted down some ideas for a sea cave and the players never bite...he would keep the idea and present it again next time they are near the coast..elsewhere? That sounds like recycling to me, or similarly with a specific idea for an NPC. The party never meets the Tinkerer so he gets shelved until the next village etc.

I haven't seen anyone saying to just pick up pieces completely and just shove them in front of the players until they get through the encounter you want. That's certainly not what I do.

Let's look at your sea cave example. Your group zigs instead of zags and thus misses it completely. Now, to them, the sea cave does not exist. You have it fixed in your head and that's fine, but they know nothing of it being there. So you pick up the detailed plans you had, the layout of the caves with the numbered sections and the traps, encounters, and other bits. Don't take those and just slap them down in front of the party. Let's say, a dozen sessions down the line, the group is trying to stop a bunch of goblinoids from raiding a small town, and to do so requires taking out their base in the mountains. And part of that happens to be underground.

Now you've got a chance to use some of that work that would have otherwise been wasted. Look at your maps and see if they need to be tweaked a little to shift from sea cave to underground cavern. Maybe what was a tidal pool becomes the pile of bones where the creatures throw their refuse, or a waterfall is replaced by a tattered banner and a secret entrance is added to the opposite wall. Traps can be changed up or moved around, enemy positions shifted to better reflect what some feral hobgoblins would do compared to demon-worshiping merfolk, for example. The point is, you can tweak an existing location to suit your needs in a fraction of the time it would take you to come up with something from scratch, and if you're a busy GM in a sandbox game that can be a lifesaver.

Or not.

Sandboxing originally involved multiple groups of players with multiple agendas.  And yes, the players may never discover some of your neat shit.  Much like 'Kill your NPCs,' you must kill your favorite adventure locations.

A large part of the referee's fun was assumed to be creating the world (a la M.A.R. Barker's world of Tekumel), so no prep was ever "wasted."

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;982924Or not.

Sandboxing originally involved multiple groups of players with multiple agendas.  And yes, the players may never discover some of your neat shit.  Much like 'Kill your NPCs,' you must kill your favorite adventure locations.

A large part of the referee's fun was assumed to be creating the world (a la M.A.R. Barker's world of Tekumel), so no prep was ever "wasted."

If you've got the time to do that, that's great. Dead serious on that. But not everyone does, especially as they get older and responsibilities change. I know I can't spend as much time today prepping for my games as I did 20 years ago, so being able to save time and not waste good gaming material is important.

The Railroad/Cheating portion of re-using comes in usually in the form of "Schrodinger's Ogre" or in this case Schrodinger's Sea Cave.  In the Railroading version, they can't miss the Sea Cave, because no matter what passage they take, they encounter the Sea Cave.  Technically not re-using, because everything gets used. (Note: This is why that guy stomped out of your Star Wars game, Grove. This what he thought you were doing).

A milder version of Schrodinger's Sea Cave is simply re-using as is.  Next time the characters need a Sea Cave, you dust off one they haven't seen yet, even if it is one that's supposed to be a hundred miles down the coast, and slap it down.  Now, this isn't necessarily railroading, there's a decent chance they'll miss this Sea Cave just like they did last time.  If you're not forcing them to see it, it isn't Railroading.  Is it cheating?  Well depends on the players I guess.  It's definitely cheating Setting Consistency, but unless you use it a second time, the players will never know (cue the Master Face Reader who can always tell if the GM is reusing a Sea Cave map ).  If it saves you time, you're the one that has to look in that mirror.

I think the more standard form of re-using is doing what you would do if you bought a module and wanted to grab a map and encounters from it.  Do a tweak and reskin as Brand55 and Lunamancer are saying.   The original location is still there, the new one is ready to go and can'y be mistaken for the original.  No Harm, No Foul.

Quote from: rgrove0172;982899Well sure but am I hearing that if the GM jotted down some ideas for a sea cave and the players never bite...he would keep the idea and present it again next time they are near the coast..elsewhere? That sounds like recycling to me, or similarly with a specific idea for an NPC. The party never meets the Tinkerer so he gets shelved until the next village etc.

Its something I do allot, FWIW.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;982924Or not.

Sandboxing originally involved multiple groups of players with multiple agendas.  And yes, the players may never discover some of your neat shit.  Much like 'Kill your NPCs,' you must kill your favorite adventure locations.

A large part of the referee's fun was assumed to be creating the world (a la M.A.R. Barker's world of Tekumel), so no prep was ever "wasted."

Plus, there might be a chance that some other group encounters the Sea Cave, and gets the treasure out of it, and the first group of players hear a rumor about it.