Why 'Sandbox' is a meaningless phrase [Archive] - Page 4

Florian

2018-03-20, 02:12 PM

Let´s see if we can salvage something useful from this whole discussion. I'm musing a bit about what "expectations" and "regular play" will have to do with all of it, because the whole analogies and some of the examples used so far are, frankly, very shallow.

So let's talk about a concrete scenario:

Basic setup: A hex map of a medium-sized valley, mainly forests, surrounded by mountains, 2 detailed villages, one small(ish) city, some 300 hexes, filled with thorps, delves, encounters and such.

Advanced setup: There two "hidden" storylines to be discovered.
1) The local Wood Elves teamed up with a green dragon to wage a guerrilla war against the humans.
2) The valley houses a vault, to be unlocked by three magic items and protected by a dungeon (what else?)

Premisse: The characters are professional adventurers, new to the area, start in village A with one major plot hook (Hobgoblins have taken over one of the abandoned forts and start raiding the thorps and farms. Please stop them) and some minor plot hooks (My niece lives in village B and needs some assistance. Can you try to find a bushel of Bloodthornweed and deliver it to her? She's expecting a baby and the midwomen swear on that stuff).

Now (1) and (2) are more tricky. Once you stumble upon parts of them (likely by finding a thorp that has been leveled by the dragon or find victims of the elvish attacks, asking a sage about the valleys history or stumbling upon one of the three "keys"). Of the 300 hexes, roughly 30 are in one way or another connected to those "plots".

(1) Is a rather political scenario that needs a lot of research to gain all the parts of the puzzle and will develop from there, but all "miss-steps" done while exploring will be taken into account and might possibly "ruin" the "ideal solution", which is basically fine (as is teaming up with the elves, for what it matters)

(2) This could be considered very linear because it can´t be solved by exploration alone but needs a pre-defined sequence of actions to happen. Research the topic, find the three "keys", learn of "the Curse", find the "Cure", breach the Vault, bingo/home run (There is no ways around this sequence).

So, this is an example of how I normally run PF, with the added points that I take the "challenge-based system" serious and try to incorporate it. My expectations on "regular play" are, that as part of the exploration, players will take an interested in both "plot lines" once they uncover them and actively try to engage/solve them, within the limits of what is available to them right now (yes, it would be foolish to challenge the dragon at level 4)

Thrudd

2018-03-20, 03:09 PM

Darth Ultron

2018-03-20, 04:13 PM

Nah. The "gamer definition" of "linear" is actually quite consistent: it's a game where the sequence of events/scenes is already planned out, and the PCs' goal is to solve the puzzle/beat the monster/overcome the challenge in each scene in a fashion that will advance them to the next one, whether by letting them past the obstacle or telling them where to go to find it. It's linear because the line is already plotted by the GM/module, and the pass/fail conditions determine if the PCs make it to the next stage.

What you are describing above is all normal RPGs, except your being a bit bias as your making it sound like it's a railroad.

A "sandbox" is a game where you have a lot of places the PCs can go, and no pre-defined path to them. There are site-based encounters which shift depending on whether the PCs did anything that influenced them before getting there. There are time-sensitive encounters which occur only if the PCs choose to go to the locations or meet certain conditions at certain times. After the party's done all this, of course you can trace a line back and say, "X led to Y led to Z," but at no point on that line were the PCs unable to go do something else, which might have led to an entirely different path past the point where they made a different choice.

This still makes no sense, as your just saying ''random mess''. Like there are site based encounters...and the characters sit around and do utterly meaningless things. Like I have said many times...the pre game.

But, eventually, the players pick something to do: a linear adventure. Ok, so then you toss out the whole ''sandbox'' paragraph and just do the normal game(that is linear).

It's the most basic, linear, idea: Character wants to kill a giant rat by a tree-----> character MUST take some sort of action to somehow kill the rat and/or get it killed. This is pure Linear. There is a direct path, the character walks over to the rat and attacks it...BUT there are other paths, but they mostly follow the direct path. But that character can ONLY do a set number of things to meet the goal of killing at rat: they simply can't just do ''whatever'' and then say ''yup the rat is dead as I went fishing for six hours''.

[/QUOTE]
This has nothing to do with "bad players" trying to "ruin" a GM's game by "surprising" him, and everything to do with players who don't know what the pre-defined solutions are coming up with solutions to try, and finding ones which, by everything except the grace of "it isn't in the module," has a reasonable chance of working. GM's don't think of everything. Module writers CERTAINLY don't. [/QUOTE]

It's true a lot of modules ''don't plan for everything'', but then that is why the game has a DM. A good DM can plan for everything; AND, ok, fine lets say they don't it utterly does not matter. Like the players come up with a clever idea or what ever..ok, fine, AND THEN the DM just makes that path. So...it's just like any other path.

[/QUOTE]
If you'd stop making up definitions that are useless to the discussion, and use the same ones everyone else - and yes, this is a case where being on the same page with everybody is useful, because it facilitates communication - you'd get a lot further. Unless your intent is to be obtuse and foolish-looking with the goal of either deceiving people into allowing you to play Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland, redefining words on a whim until you're "right" and everyone else is "wrong" if they don't agree with whatever contradictory thing you say...or to be provocative and have no actual substance to your points.[/QUOTE]

I mean different things then what the ''everyone's words'' cover.

Like I need a word for players that fool themselves...is there and Everyones Word for that?

He began by defending Railroading by expanding the term to include everything which Linear adventures include. This didn't work because he made it apparent that he was lumping in the adventure structure with tyrannical DMing practices (and just plain toxic behavior in general).

I don't say Linear is Railroading.....I say Linear is part of any normal RPG.

Both proponents of Linear and Sandbox adventures told him that he was wrong and that Railroading was used, in this context, to describe behaviors (which he brags about doing) which are agreed upon to be bad form.

We do agree the bad from toxic jerk stuff is wrong.

He has since expanded his net and attempted the opposite strategy: demonizing any game which is not Linear, his definition now including those aforementioned Railroading behaviors (along with an insistence that the dictionary definition is useful in any way to the discussion).

I am still waiting for a non linear game example. THAT is not the pregame. Ok, everyone has said over and over and over again it's ''non-lineal'' when the players wander aimlessly around and do the meaningless stuff. Ok, lets move past that. I want to get to the point of when the players DO something meaningful in an adventure sense: like go on an adventure.

Like start there. The DM has made the setting...but oddly has not made the adventure. So the player are like ''lets do X''. And....GO.

Can anyone list what they think is a Sandbox, Linear, Non-Linear and Railroad type module?

Now I have no Pathfinder Modules, and only a little 5E stuff.....but I have the bulk ton of 1E/2E/D&D(BECMI) modules, and most of 3X. So it would help if you can list from what I have.

Cluedrew

2018-03-20, 05:46 PM

What you are describing above is all normal RPGs, except your being a bit bias as your making it sound like it's a railroad.You say that like being a railroad is a bad thing. Which I agree with whole heartedly, but doesn't quite agree with how you usually use the term. You know more even worse than not using words like other people, you don't use words like even you do. So lets say that you have stumbled on great role-playing revelation that would change how people organize and run their games. It is not some "Everyone Collective" that is out to get you, if the revelation is there, it is lost under the layers of bad terminology (and personal attacks and extreme language). Sure you can blame us and say we use words wrong or something, but if you don't explain it so that we can understand, how can we understand? Repeating your position over and over again will not make it more clear.

Oh, and in response to a previous post that quoted me: no there is a difference between linear and railroad.

We do agree the bad from toxic jerk stuff is wrong.
Your example, though, as I have said, is just a Normal Game. Other then the parts where the players are acting like jerks and not playing the game together, BUT that is just a matter of stlye and taste(so it does not matter).So I guess it is possible to be a non-toxic jerk?

Darth Ultron

2018-03-20, 06:17 PM

You say that like being a railroad is a bad thing. Which I agree with whole heartedly, but doesn't quite agree with how you usually use the term.

I'm trying to avoid the 'railroad' bit....that will be another thread, maybe.

It is not some "Everyone Collective" that is out to get you, if the revelation is there, it is lost under the layers of bad terminology (and personal attacks and extreme language). Sure you can blame us and say we use words wrong or something, but if you don't explain it so that we can understand, how can we understand? Repeating your position over and over again will not make it more clear.

Here is the problem:

Someone, years ago, said something: When a Class Sucks at combat it is a Purple Duck. Everyone, it seems, hears this and agrees with it 100%. Well, I was not at that meeting and don't agree.

So I guess it is possible to be a non-toxic jerk?

Toxic is SO not my word....I avoid that psychobabble stuff.

As for the quote? Well, yes, I think it's being a jerk to go solo in a group game. Some don't agree with that and think it's great to have a solo game and have the rest of the group just be an audience. But again, this would be more of another thread: why would anyone want to be in the audience of a group game?

Cluedrew

2018-03-20, 06:32 PM

Someone, years ago, said something: When a Class Sucks at combat it is a Purple Duck. Everyone, it seems, hears this and agrees with it 100%. Well, I was not at that meeting and don't agree....

What?

If there was such a meeting I not only was not there I haven't heard its results. Because I have never heard this term used in relation to class balance before. Is there a joke here I am missing? Some meta-point? Because as far as I am aware... that is only technically a sentence.

1337 b4k4

2018-03-20, 07:11 PM

I mean different things then what the ''everyone's words'' cover.

So faced with either
A) Darth Ultron is misusing words that everyone else understands to mean specific things in order to facilitate communication about TTRPGs and the the different ways a TTRPG is played
or
B) Some mysterious "everyone collective" consisting of almost the entire TTRPG online community and specifically including people here on this very forum who otherwise agree on very little (such as myself and Max Killjoy), have banded together to create completely nonsensical and meaningless terms because they hate DMs

You've settled on option B... If I were you I would reconsider that maybe you're the one whose wrong in this instance, and not the world.

Can anyone list what they think is a Sandbox, Linear, Non-Linear and Railroad type module?

Now I have no Pathfinder Modules, and only a little 5E stuff.....but I have the bulk ton of 1E/2E/D&D(BECMI) modules, and most of 3X. So it would help if you can list from what I have.

Non-Linear Module: B2 Keep on the Borderlands. For a published module, this is fairly non-linear. It's limited in scope compared to a full sandbox campaign, but as a starting point it works. The caves of chaos are not ordered in any way (save for the fact that the lower ones are less difficult than the upper ones). The players can enter and explore any cave they desire or skip them completely. There's no "end game" for the caves, and in fact the module notes that GMs should prepare for their players to start wanting to explore the wider world before they've cleaned all the caves out. There are no proscribed ways to deal with the creatures in the caves, and players are free to engage, negotiate or any other activity they can come up with. This in addition to the keep itself and the wider wilderness map with other landmarks.

Linear Module: Dragons of Despair (DL1). Why is this a linear module, well let me quote from the module itself:

DRAGONLANCE contains a story. Players generally will spend the first part of their play gathering information about their quest. This information will direct them to the sunken city of Xak Tsaroth, where the dun- geon part of the adventure takes place.
...
Your adventures in Krynn begin with Event 1 below. As the world and history open before them, PCs face events (keyed to times) or encounters (keyed to places). Events and encounters will confront them at all stages of the adventure, and more than likely lead them to Xak Tsaroth (area 44) and an under- standing of their important quest.
...
As opposed to encounters, which take place in specific areas, events take place at specific times. They may happen anywhere unless stated otherwise. The first event begins your adventure, then each follows at its stated time in the sequence below.
...
Event 2: Goldmoon Found. Roll 1d4. The result indicates how many encounters after the beginning of the game this event takes place.
...
Event 3: Goldmoon Seen Again. If Gold- moon does not join the party in Event 2, the PCs may still meet her later. Roll 1d6 every game day, adding 1 to the number for each day Goldmoon does not meet the heroes. When the result is 6 or more, the PCs glimpse Goldmoon and Riverwind in the distance sometime during the day. The strange musicians will pause, nod, and give the PCs a chance to meet them.

As you can see, unlike B2, DL1 anticipates the path the party will take from beginning to end. They will encounter certain characters, no matter where or when they are, and if they don't join with these plot important characters, they will meet them again and again until they are forced into cooperation.

This can get worse as the modules continue. in DL2, the players WILL be arrested by Fewmaster Toede, they can not avoid being arrested and disarmed, where they will be placed in cages and have a series of pre-scripted encounters, and will be subsequently rescued by NPCs, and also notes at one point that when the PCs leave a certain area, no matter which direction they travel in they will encounter a particular group of enemies. And then there's this from the GM advice in DL3:

Because DRAGONLANCE is a story, both heroes and villains often figure promi- nently in later modules. If “name” characters or villains should be killed, arrange “obscure deaths” for them. Their bodies should not be found. Think up a creative explanation for their “miraculous” survival. For example, a character tumbles down a 500 foot shaft to certain death. Several modules later, the character reappears with a story about how he landed on a ledge and was knocked out. Much later, he came to, and spent weeks recovering and escaping. Some characters can die permanently. When a “name” character no longer plays a part in the story, his death can occur.

Now the Dragon Lance modules are fun to play through, and if your group wants to play that story, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, nor accepting the conceits (like plot armor) that go with it.

Linear and Sandbox are both normal games, but they're different types of games. And note that nothing in here is about improvisation, because both linear and sandbox games can require improvisation. The difference is often in the purpose of the improvisation. In a sandbox game, the improvisation is usually for creating a new logical set of circumstances from player behavior, in a linear game to quote DL3 again:

You must motivate the players subtly so that they follow the right path. Sometimes, you must improvise to keep the story on track.

RazorChain

2018-03-20, 07:33 PM

The verdict is that Darth Ultron has won the debate once again. He has dragged the rest of you down to his level and beaten you with experience!

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-20, 07:41 PM

The verdict is that Darth Ultron has won the debate once again. He has dragged the rest of you down to his level and beaten you with experience!

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

Note: especially if one of the participants (not you) isn't arguing in good faith.

RazorChain

2018-03-20, 07:58 PM

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

Note: especially if one of the participants (not you) isn't arguing in good faith.

I've kinda given up on debating things with DU.

With others I can have a lively debate where we might disagree and I feel that the discussion takes us somewhere but this? This is just arguing in circles.

Cluedrew

2018-03-20, 09:29 PM

Darth Ultron can win all the debates in his own mind as he wants to.

Honestly I would love to have a really deep discussion about... any a number of topics really. But I can't get people to talk about those (except caster/martial, but after 4-5 threads on that I think I have my answer on that). I mean, sure rule books is a kind of dry topic, but the thread I made on that barely made page 2. Classes and Character Creation only got to page 3. One of the social mechanics threads I've seen did really well (and was my favourite debate thread for that reason) but others didn't do so much either.

So yeah, this is a pointless discussion, but at least it is a discussion. And I think that is why a lot of people end up here. But if anyone wants to create a meaningful discussion on a more interesting topic, I will join you in that effort.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-20, 10:19 PM

You've settled on option B... If I were you I would reconsider that maybe you're the one whose wrong in this instance, and not the world.

It's not ''the world'', it is just the active posters on one small corner of the Internet.

Non-Linear Module: B2 Keep on the Borderlands. For a published module, this is fairly non-linear. It's limited in scope compared to a full sandbox campaign, but as a starting point it works.

This is a good example. Though, technically it's not an ''adventure'' and it's more of a ''campaign starter book''. But that does not even matter: the module is just mindless, meaningless, aimless combat. The whole module is just ''there are monsters in the caves, go kill them''. So there is no substance to the module at all. It is noting but, ''go to cave 3, fight monsters". For most people, this would not be all that fun of a game; it's the classic kill, loot, repeat. So it's a great example of how a non linear adventure is no fun for most. This module is made for casual gamers that just want to ''toss some dice in combat'' for a couple hours.

And...well...it is Linear as it does have the path of------>Characters go to keep---->Characters for some reason agree to clear the caves of monsters---->Characters clear each cave, one by one, until they are all empty.

And sure, the players can be all happy an ''pick'' the order that they clear the caves, but only because it's meaningless.

Linear Module: Dragons of Despair (DL1).

Agreed...the ''D" adventures are all Linear....as again, as I have said, all good well written adventures are.

Honestly I would love to have a really deep discussion about... any a number of topics really. But I can't get people to talk about those

I'll do it. Start a conversation. I know I will have a unique viewpoint not shared by ''everyone''...amazing how that works, but it's true.

So I wonder if anyone can name another non-linear adventure?

Honestly I would love to have a really deep discussion about... any a number of topics really. But I can't get people to talk about those

I'll do it. Start a conversation. I know I will have a unique viewpoint not shared by ''everyone''...amazing how that works, but it's true.

RazorChain

2018-03-20, 10:32 PM

1337 b4k4

2018-03-20, 10:56 PM

It's not ''the world'', it is just the active posters on one small corner of the Internet.

You did say "everyone".

meaningless.

What does it mean for a module to have meaning? Or to put it differently, "'meaningless' is a meaningless phrase"

I'll do it. Start a conversation. I know I will have a unique viewpoint not shared by ''everyone''...amazing how that works, but it's true.

Why would we want to start another conversation when we can't even seem to agree on a common definition of words.

Mordaedil

2018-03-21, 02:22 AM

It's a very typical anti-social aspergers type reaction to claim everybody participated in some sort of meeting a long time ago and agreed on something together, like some sort of exclusivity club.

Milo v3

2018-03-21, 02:34 AM

It's a very typical anti-social aspergers type reaction to claim everybody participated in some sort of meeting a long time ago and agreed on something together, like some sort of exclusivity club.

As an anti-social autistic person. Could you not?

Florian

2018-03-21, 03:34 AM

Do you enact any guidelines or prohibitions on characters for this scenario?

Fairly standard ones: Core races, all classes, no PrC, no evil alignments (and no playing CN as CE), core spells only, even for divine casters/spells known casters, non core spells have to be found, traded for or researched.
No magic mart or spell book buying. WBL is used but you can only trade spell for spell, item for item, scroll for scroll (above 1st level spells).

Well, it´s a "after the fall" type of game world where much has been lost, so you can actually make a living by hunting down lost spells, magic items and such.

Let´s expand on it a bit, by adding roughly 600 more hexes, one large city and some villages..... and a twist (*). We also now have three major dungeons to explore.

3) Two arch wizards are locked in a feud that has reached a deadlock. Both need help in finding a missing third wizard to break the tie.
4) The missing wizard rediscovered the art of plane travel and went on exploring the Plane of Shadow (*). Now unlike the more boring D&D 3E version, this is more based on the Shadowfell and a more blatant horror realms version of the real world.
5) We now have a legendary artifact sword, that can either slay the avatar of a demon lord or bring down the walls to the abyss, three things that are connected with the dungeons.

Premisse: As previous post, but both arch wizards will try to contact the party once they made a name in the valley.

Advanced premises: As before, some of the stuff is up to you, like teaming up with one wizard against the other, ignoring or killing both, and so on, but the "main plot" also relies on a logical sequence of events to happen, that mostly can´t just be triggered by just exploration (know of missing third wizard, find his tower, enter the shadow world, find him, get knowledge of the sword, so on).

Koo Rehtorb

2018-03-21, 03:54 AM

Mordaedil

2018-03-21, 04:20 AM

As an anti-social autistic person. Could you not?

I am one too, I just recognize what some of us struggle with.

Pleh

2018-03-21, 04:42 AM

My expectations on "regular play" are, that as part of the exploration, players will take an interested in both "plot lines" once they uncover them and actively try to engage/solve them, within the limits of what is available to them right now (yes, it would be foolish to challenge the dragon at level 4)

Well, yes, I imagine fairly few characters would feel total disconnect from such a game changing plot.

I feel like common complications I might run into is if my heroes happen to be wood elf, half dragon, half celestial, or warforged. You know, having some reason either to not feel obligated to help the humans or even a reason to join the wood elves.

That said, the inclusion of an over CR dragon can set up a campaign similar to Aragorn's quest after rescuing merry and pippin, traveling to human settlements to help them prepare. You can plan wood elves attacking a village evacuation for the players to fight, only to gradually scale up the difficulty as more elves arrive. The dragon can be a final trump card to end the encounter.

jayem

2018-03-21, 04:49 AM

Let´s expand on it a bit, by adding roughly 600 more hexes, one large city and some villages..... and a twist (*). We also now have three major dungeons to explore.

Well like most normal games it seems like it contains some sandbox and some linear elements.
In this case from the bits you describe, it's very like Morrowind. It would be good to hear the bits that make it different.

The situations do seem to tend to the linear and passive (except possibly the dragon).
The hexcrawl has good sandbox potential.

If you want to make it more linear. You could take some hints from the original SW-Kotor and then go further. First couple some of the events in a way that makes a sequence (maybe you NEED the sword to kill the dragon). Lock some of the areas off till the previous sequence is done. Each event happens in it's own area (except when you want to start the next one). Ensure on arrival in a zone events conspire to have the players basically locked up.
Fence, quantum ogre and zone the hex-crawl area so the way between two points is functionally identical. If you do have to give a choice (give money to a begger) make sure it's effects are limited. Signpost the 'right' way.

If you want to make it more sandboxy, again ironically you probably want to couple the events. But this time you keep the initial options the same but in a way that the initial choices create semi-predictable consequences (different but not clearly rankable). Perhaps one of the keys is in the dragons turf and it reacts by breaking it's alliance temporarily to pursue you. While killing the dragon frees villagers to help you with the key and also to try and steal it.
With the hex crawl you want to make the different types of hex very different, and maximise the times when you have a choice between them (e.g. have a nice safe long road, with a dangerous shortcut or the road splits with one path going past a signposted monster via village A and one past a signposted whirlpool via village B). Signpost what is ahead (more or less).

Florian

2018-03-21, 06:05 AM

I've always found the whole "no evil alignment" thing people talk about on the internet to be so bizarre. No one I've ever played with has ever done that, and most of them trend towards evil characters most of the time.

With the only exception being games where being evil would be wildly out of genre, like if we're specifically playing a superhero system.

Believe me, I´ve had some very bad experience with this, especially when people tend to see alignments as prescriptive instead of descriptive.

As I mentioned, I gm "plain vanilla" Pathfinder, so basic heroic fantasy with a need for coherent teamwork that sits squarely between 3.5 and 4E when it comes to tactical combat.

Well, yes, I imagine fairly few characters would feel total disconnect from such a game changing plot.

This is why I brought it up. Some people partaking in this overall discussion voiced the opinion that they would feel forced to do so.

Well like most normal games it seems like it contains some sandbox and some linear elements.
In this case from the bits you describe, it's very like Morrowind. It would be good to hear the bits that make it different.

Some pages back, someone compared that to a "quantum wave break down". Things are "in potential" until you interact with them, then they start moving based on how you interacted with them, mostly becoming linear.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-21, 06:56 AM

Some pages back, someone compared that to a "quantum wave break down". Things are "in potential" until you interact with them, then they start moving based on how you interacted with them, mostly becoming linear.

Springboarding off this concept, I think it's worth distinguishing a few zoom levels, as well as connection levels (one is a vertical scale and the other a horizontal scale).

Zoom is the old strategy/tactics discussion, except in campaign terms.

At the lowest level you have the tactical zoom level: the action by action, round by round decision-making process. What are the characters doing right now. This is (often) both uncontrolled but highly constrained. The DM rarely says "your character is doing X", barring mind control. But often there are a limited set of actions that make sense given context, power-set, and character.

Next you have the strategic zoom level: what are our characters trying to do in this portion of the campaign. This speaks more toward goals--anything from "get stronger" to "overthrow that government" to "explore this dungeon." In a highly-linear game this has some wiggle room but is pretty locked down. In a highly-sandboxy game this has almost total freedom--you can pick up pieces, move them around a bit, and then switch and go and do something else (accepting the consequences of leaving things unfinished).

At the top is the meta zoom level--the campaign themes, goals, overarching arc/storyline, etc. This often doesn't exist fully at the character level--those 1st level characters don't know that their player has agreed to play "Dragon-slayers of Rock Hold." This level is almost entirely unconstrained by the game itself, but should be the subject of negotiations. Sometimes you know the scope and focus of this level in advance ("We're playing the Skulls and Shackles AP"), other times you don't (a more sandboxy meta level).

Connections are the horizontal ties between events within a setting. This really is a spectrum.

Low connectivity:
Looting or not looting the long-forgotten tomb of Sir Whatever-his-face (that no one knew existed or cared) has very little connectivity with outside events. Whatever the party does there has basically no effect on the outside world. A game mostly built of low connectivity scenarios (like an old-school excuse-plot dungeon-crawl) can remain sandboxy throughout. The PCs move about, doing stuff but disturbances are locally-confined. The world rarely intervenes in the PCs actions, and the PCs rarely intervene in the bigger events.

High connectivity:
The party intervening on one side or another (or neither!) of the balance-of-power between two rival states has high external connectivity--whatever they do has ripples that will affect the larger setting. Fulfilling an ancient prophecy that requires actions A, B, and Q has high internal connectivity--unless all these things are done right, the prophecy fails. Both of these put constraints on the party that often produce the appearance of linearity. Even though there is no external entity forcing the party to act in a certain way, the party must follow that pattern or their goal will be lost, just due to the intrinsic nature of the goal itself. A world full of high-connectivity events means that the party will be following predictable trajectories once they pick a goal to tackle, at least if they want to succeed. This does not make the game completely linear--they still have strategic and meta-level choices.

Note: I hope this makes sense. It made a lot of sense in my head, but in the transition to text I fear clarity was lost.

napoleon_in_rag

2018-03-21, 07:00 AM

But that does not even matter: the module is just mindless, meaningless, aimless combat. The whole module is just ''there are monsters in the caves, go kill them''. So there is no substance to the module at all. It is noting but, ''go to cave 3, fight monsters". For most people, this would not be all that fun of a game; it's the classic kill, loot, repeat. So it's a great example of how a non linear adventure is no fun for most.

"The Keep on the Borderlands" is almost 40 years old. It's strange that people keep coming back to such a mindless, un-fun module.

Florian

2018-03-21, 07:03 AM

"The Keep on the Borderlands" is almost 40 years old. It's strange that people keep coming back to such a mindless, un-fun module.

Mostly because a very verbose faction sees it as the epitome of what D&D is?

Darth Ultron

2018-03-21, 07:06 AM

You did say "everyone".

Yes, note the " " 's. When you " a word" you don't mean exactly that word.

What does it mean for a module to have meaning? Or to put it differently, "'meaningless' is a meaningless phrase"

Well, a general sense of accomplishment and doing something. But the Old School definition of really doing something, not the new wave idea of Everyone gets a participation trophy.

Why would we want to start another conversation when we can't even seem to agree on a common definition of words.

Communication is the Problem, but also the answer.

It's a very typical anti-social aspergers type reaction to claim everybody participated in some sort of meeting a long time ago and agreed on something together, like some sort of exclusivity club.

Though it does seem to be true. Take a word, Railroad or Munchkin or whatever....and not only does every poster ''just know'' what that word means, but they agree with it 100%. It's really odd.

I am one too, I just recognize what some of us struggle with.

Weird thing is....I'm the social guy.

So, this is an example of how I normally run PF, with the added points that I take the "challenge-based system" serious and try to incorporate it. My expectations on "regular play" are, that as part of the exploration, players will take an interested in both "plot lines" once they uncover them and actively try to engage/solve them, within the limits of what is available to them right now (yes, it would be foolish to challenge the dragon at level 4)

Are you saying this is a sandbox?

If you do, I would point out that ANY game, that is not a Jerk DM Railroad game(the kind hated by the majority of posters), is like this.

It's a very session 0 type thing: The DM makes the setting and makes it ''come alive''.

So session 1 starts and one of two things happen:

1)The players pick something to do about or related to any of the plot hooks the DM left them or something just based on the setting.
2)The players explore and wander, but don't do much of anything other then that.

Two is oddly popular, and some players just love having their characters sit around and have lunch or get a hair cut or other such fluff. Though eventually, most players, after a couple hours of this will want to do something like an adventure with more substance. And just to be clear, I'm a big lover of Fluff....but Fluff IN the Adventure, not the random meaninglessly pre game activity. Like a Two type player will want his half orc barbarian to ''eat at a fancy restaurant'' for like an hour of real time for no other reason then to just ''do it''; I'm going to say, ''fine, if you ant to do that, how about you accept the mayors mission to take the herbs to his niece and ask the mayor to take you to a fancy restaurant." And just like that, we start and advance an adventure plot, and the player can spend a whole hour having their character eat at a restaurant.

But your example is all Set Up....what happens once the game starts?

AvatarVecna

2018-03-21, 07:25 AM

Here is the problem:

Someone, years ago, said something: When a Class Sucks at combat it is a Purple Duck. Everyone, it seems, hears this and agrees with it 100%. Well, I was not at that meeting and don't agree.

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/23/23dca68836a9cfe5cf682fd76c99c4223bffea38256d16ff0c b31feffde5f680.jpg

Ladies and gentlemen, Darth Ultron's best (and, in my opinion, most successful) attempt at clearly and concisely communicating his problem with the concept of sandbox games. I, for one, require no further clarification.

napoleon_in_rag

2018-03-21, 07:30 AM

Mostly because a very verbose faction sees it as the epitome of what D&D is?

But no one goes back to "Palace of the Silver Princess" or "Rahasia". I wonder why?

Darth Ultron

2018-03-21, 07:36 AM

Mostly because a very verbose faction sees it as the epitome of what D&D is?

Really? I think it's the worst of the Non-Adventure Modules. It IS just Kill, Loot, Repeat.

But still, I do give the module a lot of credit for being one of the first ''Campaign setting Sourcebooks''. The module does present a Keep, the Surrounding lands and lots of little plot hooks. It's a great example of ''here is how to make a simple setting''. And, way back when, I did use it for just that as the players stayed 'based' at the keep for a long time.

Cluedrew

2018-03-21, 08:17 AM

I'll do it. Start a conversation. I know I will have a unique viewpoint not shared by ''everyone''...amazing how that works, but it's true.
I'm Edgy McEdgelord so I can probably whip up something controversial that will keep us occupied for 10 pages or so :smallwink:Well I have the dry one about rule-books going right now. Actually RazorChain already has a posted in it, but it is there for all. Including you and your unique viewpoint Darth Ultron. Just keep it polite.

Ladies and gentlemen, Darth Ultron's best (and, in my opinion, most successful) attempt at clearly and concisely communicating his problem with the concept of sandbox games. I, for one, require no further clarification.What is more amazing only two people have bothered to respond to this revelation of a comment. I feel there is some significance to that.

jayem

2018-03-21, 09:27 AM

Connections are the horizontal ties between events within a setting. This really is a spectrum.

I think connectivity can has a more complex relationship. It is important but it's not just a scale.

Low connectivity makes the sandbox/linear difference moot, it's easy to make sandboxy as you state, but each bit can also be highly predictable and cut-scened. While on the large scale neither really get the preplanned-great story, or the meaningful consequences. The party is free to be act chaotically with no long term ramifications (for them and the GM), but also doesn't really get any benefit from doing so.

High connectivity can cut both ways:
It could be used to join isolated bits in a linear path (thou must do Quest A before Quest B)
If the GM is precious about keeping Quests then he has to be more linear earlier (you have to finish Quest B in such a way or Quest E can't occur).
Conversely if the GM decides action in 'Quest' B has to have 'deep and meaningful' consequences on 'Quest' E then it will be sandboxy

While for the players. In some ways they have to behave more predictably as they have long term goals. But any small unpredictability in the party has complex ramifications. In addition these ramifications may affect them in harder to predict ways.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-21, 09:44 AM

I think connectivity can has a more complex relationship. It is important but it's not just a scale.

Low connectivity makes the sandbox/linear difference moot, it's easy to make sandboxy as you state, but each bit can also be highly predictable and cut-scened. While on the large scale neither really get the preplanned-great story, or the meaningful consequences. The party is free to be act chaotically with no long term ramifications (for them and the GM), but also doesn't really get any benefit from doing so.

High connectivity can cut both ways:
It could be used to join isolated bits in a linear path (thou must do Quest A before Quest B)
If the GM is precious about keeping Quests then he has to be more linear earlier (you have to finish Quest B in such a way or Quest E can't occur).
Conversely if the GM decides action in 'Quest' B has to have 'deep and meaningful' consequences on 'Quest' E then it will be sandboxy

While for the players. In some ways they have to behave more predictably as they have long term goals. But any small unpredictability in the party has complex ramifications. In addition these ramifications may affect them in harder to predict ways.

Absolutely. Connectivity is a cross-cutting concern. It can aid in making a game more meaningful (each action has spiralling ramifications that have to be reacted to). Forcing connectivity into places it doesn't make sense causes issues (especially in a sandbox)--why is that long-forgotten tomb that they stumbled across at random suddenly the core of a continent-spanning conspiracy? It reeks of Inevitable Ogres. Too little connectivity can lead to boredom, or it can be an essential part of an episodic game.

At one end of the spectrum is the sharply focused game--everything revolves around one tightly bound quest. When that quest is over (win or lose) the game is over. Anything else is, at best, a side-quest. This style needs high connectivity to avoid the "why are you catching rabbits while the world burns?" problem with side-quests in video games.

At the other end is the purely episodic game--each session is a separate adventure with recurring characters. No overarching plot, very little continuity is expected except in things that the PCs carry with them or things they bring back. This is the old-style dungeon crawl. This needs low connectivity or else it collapses into a more mixed style.

Many games sit happily in the middle--short-ish arcs that are mostly unconnected but connected and linear-ish within an arc. That's my default style due in large part to my players.

Segev

2018-03-21, 10:50 AM

What you are describing above is all normal RPGs, except your being a bit bias as your making it sound like it's a railroad. Really? I think you're projecting, here. I used no negative terms in describing a linear game in the quote to which this quote is a response. I didn't even veer off to mention that a DM enforcing this poorly leads to a railroad; I only addressed a healthy linear game design.

You're the one who attributed negativity to the description, and then claimed I was trying to make it look like a railroad.

Now, to the rest of the point here: No, I didn't describe all normal RPGs, here. I did describe a great many of them, however.

This still makes no sense, as your just saying ''random mess''.You use quotes, which I assume means you're claiming I used those words. Please show me where I said sandboxes are a "random mess." If you instead mean that what I described can be summed up in those words, please explain how. If the following is your attempt at that, you are demonstrating that your reading comprehension is exceptionally poor.

Like there are site based encounters...and the characters sit around and do utterly meaningless things. Like I have said many times...the pre game.Where did I say that the characters "sit around and do utterly meaningless things?" I don't see it in my text you quoted. If you feel what I described sounds like "sit[ting] around and do[ing] utterly meaningless things," please elaborate. Were I to interpret what you write as orthogonally to what your words mean as you seem to treat what I do, I would say that the above quote has you agreeing that sandboxes are superior because players in them run successful games, and that you admit that you're afraid players might have fun.

That isn't what you said at all, but given your overall attitude and what I suspect, I could pretend to read that into what you said, and be just as accurately representing what you said as you are representing what I said.

Re-examine what you quoted me as saying, and provide specific example of anything I said being a "random mess" or players doing "meaningless things."

But, eventually, the players pick something to do: a linear adventure. Ok, so then you toss out the whole ''sandbox'' paragraph and just do the normal game(that is linear).There may be site-based adventures. There may be linear adventures. You seem hung up on the notion that only the small portion of the game that corresponds to linear adventures is "the real game," and everything else is "pre-game." This is strange, to me, considering that "classic" D&D was pure hex crawl+dungeon crawl, and even a dismissal of the hex crawl as "extended pre-game" leaves the dungeon crawl, which is most definitely not linear.

It's the most basic, linear, idea: Character wants to kill a giant rat by a tree-----> character MUST take some sort of action to somehow kill the rat and/or get it killed. This is pure Linear. There is a direct path, the character walks over to the rat and attacks it...BUT there are other paths, but they mostly follow the direct path. But that character can ONLY do a set number of things to meet the goal of killing at rat: they simply can't just do ''whatever'' and then say ''yup the rat is dead as I went fishing for six hours''.That's not linear. "Linear" is, "character must learn of rat from quest-giver. Character must investigate last known site of rat attack. Character must track rat to stream. Character must talk to the trapper at the stream to learn that the rat likes certain kinds of bait. Character must then use bait to lure rat, which will allow first opportunity to fight and kill rat. If rat escapes, character must track rat back to lair, and brave lair to corner and kill rat."

Non-linear means that the character can try things like hiring the trapper to lay a set of traps and set up the bait-ground to keep the rat from escaping. Or can try poisoning the bait rather than actually fighting the rat at all. Or can buy some dogs trained in tracking to pick up the rat's scent, then, when the trail hits the stream, go up and down both shores until the dogs pick up the scent again, ignoring the trapper and bait entirely.

Non-linear means the facts are that a trapper knows what bait to leave out to lure the rat away from his kills, that the rat has a lair in a particular location, that the rat's last known attack was at this other particular location, and the rat's path back to its lair crossed the river. How the PCs use or discover any of this is up to them.

Let me try one more way of communicating this with you: are you familiar with the concept of "sequence-breaking" in video games?

napoleon_in_rag

2018-03-21, 11:01 AM

At one end of the spectrum is the sharply focused game--everything revolves around one tightly bound quest. When that quest is over (win or lose) the game is over. Anything else is, at best, a side-quest. This style needs high connectivity to avoid the "why are you catching rabbits while the world burns?" problem with side-quests in video games.

At the other end is the purely episodic game--each session is a separate adventure with recurring characters. No overarching plot, very little continuity is expected except in things that the PCs carry with them or things they bring back. This is the old-style dungeon crawl. This needs low connectivity or else it collapses into a more mixed style.

I have always thought about this as "Tolkien" vs "Howard".

Tolkien's Lord of the Rings has an overarching plot of good vs evil. There is a BBEG, a quest to save middle earth and every character is involved with the plot.

Howard's Conan books are always about Conan but they are largely unrelated to each other. He defeats several minor evils but there is never a BBEG that goes past an individual book. Conan eventually becomes a King, but that doesn't seem to be a goal throughout most of the books. I am pretty sure that no character repeats from one book to the next.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-21, 11:42 AM

I have always thought about this as "Tolkien" vs "Howard".

Tolkien's Lord of the Rings has an overarching plot of good vs evil. There is a BBEG, a quest to save middle earth and every character is involved with the plot.

Howard's Conan books are always about Conan but they are largely unrelated to each other. He defeats several minor evils but there is never a BBEG that goes past an individual book. Conan eventually becomes a King, but that doesn't seem to be a goal throughout most of the books. I am pretty sure that no character repeats from one book to the next.

That works well. I often think of "monster of the week" TV shows or things like Star Trek for the episodic structure--there's very little week-to-week continuity. Only rarely does the order you watch them matter, and each villain/scenario is separate.

Chekhov's gun (remove all non-essential elements) is advice that works best for strongly-connected games or for short ones (having been written originally for short stories). It's bad advice for an episodic structure. This is an example of why the connectivity-level you're aiming for matters.

Of course most games are a mix--they have episodic elements and connected elements. Even episodic TV shows often have plot threads that weave throughout and even Tolkein had extraneous elements (that whole scene with Tom Bombadil).

Corneel

2018-03-21, 11:46 AM

kyoryu

2018-03-21, 01:05 PM

That works well. I often think of "monster of the week" TV shows or things like Star Trek for the episodic structure--there's very little week-to-week continuity. Only rarely does the order you watch them matter, and each villain/scenario is separate.

Chekhov's gun (remove all non-essential elements) is advice that works best for strongly-connected games or for short ones (having been written originally for short stories). It's bad advice for an episodic structure. This is an example of why the connectivity-level you're aiming for matters.

Of course most games are a mix--they have episodic elements and connected elements. Even episodic TV shows often have plot threads that weave throughout and even Tolkein had extraneous elements (that whole scene with Tom Bombadil).

Well, plays, actually, but yes.

For serial entertainment (TV shows, episodic games), leaving things out there is a good idea just to use later, or to see how the players/audience respond, etc.

It's also worth remembering that what comes out of an RPG is more akin to a first draft than anything. There's no editing involved, which is where you'd prune out things that you thought were going to be useful and ended up being irrelevant.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-21, 01:20 PM

Well, plays, actually, but yes.

For serial entertainment (TV shows, episodic games), leaving things out there is a good idea just to use later, or to see how the players/audience respond, etc.

It's also worth remembering that what comes out of an RPG is more akin to a first draft than anything. There's no editing involved, which is where you'd prune out things that you thought were going to be useful and ended up being irrelevant.

Agreed. And leaving things unused also gives a sense that the world is actually there--not all real situations get resolved nicely. Hanging plot threads in real life are the order of the day, not something due to poor editing. Too tidy of a wrap-up makes it feel false, at least to me.

napoleon_in_rag

2018-03-21, 01:48 PM

That was surprisingly lucid, Da ... oh blast, avatar-induced confusion.

Perhaps we are the same person, just with a different amount of alcohol or caffeine in our bloodstream.

Corneel

2018-03-21, 04:08 PM

Perhaps we are the same person, just with a different amount of alcohol or caffeine in our bloodstream.
I prefer to believe that neither substance can be that mind-altering.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-21, 08:12 PM

Really? I think you're projecting, here. I used no negative terms in describing a linear game in the quote to which this quote is a response. I didn't even veer off to mention that a DM enforcing this poorly leads to a railroad; I only addressed a healthy linear game design.

Well, your description is: The DM makes One Way and then the players must do that. So, how is that not a Railroad? Or did you mean something else?

You use quotes, which I assume means you're claiming I used those words. Please show me where I said sandboxes are a "random mess." If you instead mean that what I described can be summed up in those words, please explain how. If the following is your attempt at that, you are demonstrating that your reading comprehension is exceptionally poor.

Ok, you said:

1.Ok, so you say there are site based encounter that 'shift'.
2.There are time-sensitive encounters which occur only if the PCs choose to go to the locations or meet certain conditions at certain times.

So..there are site based encounters and time sensitive encounters. You don't say any more then that. You don't say they are connected, just that they are there. So...ok, they are there. So how Do the players encounter the encounters. Is there a plot and story to follow, or do they just wander at random?

3.Then you kinda jump to but at no point on that line were the PCs unable to go do something else.

This sure makes it sound like there is no plot or story and the PCs can just wander at random.

4.then you really randomly say which might have led to an entirely different path past the point where they made a different choice.

I guess here your trying to say the game changes?

But over all you are just saying, there are encounters.....and the PCs might have them? Sounds very random to me.

Where did I say that the characters "sit around and do utterly meaningless things?" I don't see it in my text you quoted. If you feel what I described sounds like "sit[ting] around and do[ing] utterly meaningless things," please elaborate.

Admittedly you did not say the character should do anything. You have encounters and PCs, but never mention a plot or story or any reason for the characters to DO anything.

Re-examine what you quoted me as saying, and provide specific example of anything I said being a "random mess" or players doing "meaningless things."

Well, you don't say they are doing anything either.

There may be site-based adventures. There may be linear adventures. You seem hung up on the notion that only the small portion of the game that corresponds to linear adventures is "the real game," and everything else is "pre-game." This is strange, to me, considering that "classic" D&D was pure hex crawl+dungeon crawl, and even a dismissal of the hex crawl as "extended pre-game" leaves the dungeon crawl, which is most definitely not linear.

Well, you get two basic ways to do a TRPG: Random or Adventure.

Random-This is the Classic D&D way: The Hex Crawl. There is a location full of monsters. The characters are just about pure blanks except for their pure combat mechanics and they have names. There is no reason for the characters to do anything, other then the metagame reason that they want to have a fun game. This is a Pure Roll Playing Game.

Adventure- This is the other way: a living, breathing, detail world. The characters are very detailed with personalities, back stories, and everything to make them come alive also. There is a plot and story and drama and reasons for the characters to do things in-universe. This is Role Playing.

Now, many, even more so D&D gamers, do the random roll play only. It's just Kill, Loot, Repeat. It's popular with Casual gamers.

BUT, the vast majority of players don't find the random roll play to be enough. After you have done the 500th encounter of a 10 x10 room with and orc guarding a chest, again, they want to do something more.

Non-linear means that the character can try things like hiring the trapper to lay a set of traps and set up the bait-ground to keep the rat from escaping. Or can try poisoning the bait rather than actually fighting the rat at all. Or can buy some dogs trained in tracking to pick up the rat's scent, then, when the trail hits the stream, go up and down both shores until the dogs pick up the scent again, ignoring the trapper and bait entirely.

What makes this ''non-linear''?

You described ONE path, and said THIS is the Linear game. OK?

Then you described a couple of other paths, and said they are NOT Linear...for no reason.

So can you explain this?

Ok, Day one of the adventure, the characters lean about the rats, and decide to do something about it. And like ANY typical TRPG the players can try to do ANYTHING they want to(within some limits) to reach the goal. So your saying, if the players pick one path at random, that way is Linear.....but if the players pick one of the other paths, that is non-linear?

Let me try one more way of communicating this with you: are you familiar with the concept of "sequence-breaking" in video games?

No.

I have always thought about this as "Tolkien" vs "Howard".

It sounds good to me.

Tolkien is an epic set of linked adventures: A campaign.

Howard is just a single stand alone adventure.

Xuc Xac

2018-03-21, 09:07 PM

1.Ok, so you say there are site based encounter that 'shift'.
2.There are time-sensitive encounters which occur only if the PCs choose to go to the locations or meet certain conditions at certain times.

So..there are site based encounters and time sensitive encounters. You don't say any more then that. You don't say they are connected, just that they are there. So...ok, they are there. So how Do the players encounter the encounters. Is there a plot and story to follow, or do they just wander at random?

Is there a plot and story to follow? No.
Do they just wander at random? No.

They encounter the site based encounters by going to the site. They encounter the time based encounters by being in the right place at the right time.

Site based: There's a troll guarding a bridge and charging a toll to cross. The PCs will have this encounter any time they try to cross that bridge. Father Fischman is in the temple of the sea god, where he dispenses blessings, gives dried fish to the hungry, and offers advice to worshipers. PCs can meet him any time they go to the temple.

Time based: Lord Dunkelbooty is in the temple of the sea god every Tuesday morning to talk to Father Fischman and offer a chicken on the altar. PCs can meet him if they catch him in the temple on Tuesday morning.

Why would they go to those places? Lots of different reasons. They have to go somewhere across the river and the bridge is the shortest route. They heard there's a troll under the bridge and they hate trolls, so they go to kill him. They heard there's a troll under the bridge collecting tolls and they hate toll collectors. If the PCs are "name level" in an older edition of D&D, maybe they built a castle nearby and don't want someone else collecting a toll from a bridge in "their" territory so they want to drive off the troll. Or collect their lordly share of the toll as a tax to support their fief. Or recruit the troll to work a more lucrative toll crossing elsewhere in their territory.

If the players are really "role playing instead of roll playing", they'll have their own reasons for doing things and don't need to be led by the nose.

1337 b4k4

2018-03-21, 09:15 PM

Adventure- This is the other way: a living, breathing, detail world. The characters are very detailed with personalities, back stories, and everything to make them come alive also. There is a plot and story and drama and reasons for the characters to do things in-universe.

And what sort of game is one where there's a living, breathing detailed world. The characters are very detailed with personalities, back stories and everything to make them come alive. There's drama and reasons for the characters to do thing in universe. But there is no plot.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-22, 12:27 AM

Site based: There's a troll guarding a bridge and charging a toll to cross. The PCs will have this encounter any time they try to cross that bridge. Father Fischman is in the temple of the sea god, where he dispenses blessings, gives dried fish to the hungry, and offers advice to worshipers. PCs can meet him any time they go to the temple.

This IS my point though.

Ok, the game starts and the characters are in a grassy field. Ok, so a mile away to the north is the troll bridge. A mile to the south is the temple.

And the characters have no reason to go anywhere. So, sure, they can randomly pick a direction and go that way. If they randomly go to a encounter site they can have the encounter. But it's pointless and meaningless.

They randomly wander to location A, and have encounter A. Ok, then encounter A is over and then there is nothing. So they They randomly wander to location B, and have encounter B. They do this for hours, until the game session is over.

Time based: Lord Dunkelbooty is in the temple of the sea god every Tuesday morning to talk to Father Fischman and offer a chicken on the altar. PCs can meet him if they catch him in the temple on Tuesday morning.

But again, there is not reason to go there.

Why would they go to those places? Lots of different reasons. They have to go somewhere across the river and the bridge is the shortest route. They heard there's a troll under the bridge and they hate trolls, so they go to kill him. They heard there's a troll under the bridge collecting tolls and they hate toll collectors. If the PCs are "name level" in an older edition of D&D, maybe they built a castle nearby and don't want someone else collecting a toll from a bridge in "their" territory so they want to drive off the troll. Or collect their lordly share of the toll as a tax to support their fief. Or recruit the troll to work a more lucrative toll crossing elsewhere in their territory.

If the players are really "role playing instead of roll playing", they'll have their own reasons for doing things and don't need to be led by the nose.

Right, and now your saying there HAS to be a reason for the characters to do something...like a story and a plot and an adventure. And this is what I have said All along.

Like the PCs are sitting in a bar, and the DM has an NPC gnome tell them ''there is a troll bridge over there''. Then the PC, who don't need that DM to tell them what to do, decide to follow the DM's adventure hook anyway. And so starts the Adventure: The Troll Bridge.

Look at the linear magic:

DM makes setting with adventure hooks--->Players pick an adventure hook--->DM makes and runs that adventure.

And what sort of game is one where there's a living, breathing detailed world. The characters are very detailed with personalities, back stories and everything to make them come alive. There's drama and reasons for the characters to do thing in universe. But there is no plot.

Well, why is there no plot? The answer is: there is always a plot.

Now, of course, I'd guess that when you say ''plot'' your saying ''horrible jerk DM Railroad badwrongfun'', right? Because you think an RPG plot is like a novel or movie plot and you don't get that they are different.

Like in the Troll Bridge above IS a plot....though yes, it is a silly, dumb, cartoonist one...but still a plot. You have PCs learn about troll---->PCs decide to do something--->Pcs do something--->Conclusion. See it's a simple plot (and note it does NOT in any way have the DM forcing the players or characters to ''do" anything that is not part of the setting/rules/common sense. Like if the PCs want to encounter the troll personally they ''have to'' go to the troll bridge.)

Thrudd

2018-03-22, 01:47 AM

Florian

2018-03-22, 01:47 AM

But no one goes back to "Palace of the Silver Princess" or "Rahasia". I wonder why?

IIRC, the Keep came bundled with some of the rules and was often the first thing related to D&D that people were exposed to, setting the standard.

It´s also interesting that Dragon #300 had a top 20 list of best D&D modules of all time, with the highly linear, plot-based ones leading the rankings.

Are you saying this is a sandbox?

But your example is all Set Up....what happens once the game starts?

That's a sandbox setup as I use it, yes.

So far, the most common reaction at start was the question: "Ok, what is there to do?", followed by "I ask around, check for rumors, see if there's a wanted board, look for a shop that sells maps".

Absolutely. Connectivity is a cross-cutting concern. It can aid in making a game more meaningful (each action has spiralling ramifications that have to be reacted to). Forcing connectivity into places it doesn't make sense causes issues (especially in a sandbox)--why is that long-forgotten tomb that they stumbled across at random suddenly the core of a continent-spanning conspiracy? It reeks of Inevitable Ogres. Too little connectivity can lead to boredom, or it can be an essential part of an episodic game.

At one end of the spectrum is the sharply focused game--everything revolves around one tightly bound quest. When that quest is over (win or lose) the game is over. Anything else is, at best, a side-quest. This style needs high connectivity to avoid the "why are you catching rabbits while the world burns?" problem with side-quests in video games.

At the other end is the purely episodic game--each session is a separate adventure with recurring characters. No overarching plot, very little continuity is expected except in things that the PCs carry with them or things they bring back. This is the old-style dungeon crawl. This needs low connectivity or else it collapses into a more mixed style.

Many games sit happily in the middle--short-ish arcs that are mostly unconnected but connected and linear-ish within an arc. That's my default style due in large part to my players.

That's why I tend to differentiate between "game setting" and "game world".

In low connectivity mode, those are identical. The setting is the game world, ie. where all of it happens.

In high connectivity mode, there's a sharp divide. The setting only provides the backdrop, the game world is the sum of NPC sheets, R-Maps and Timeslines. In handling this connections, not by interacting with the overall world, is where the action is.

Example:

For my L5R campaign, I'm just using a map of old Edo. It and by extension the map of Rokugan, are only there to provide context, to mark spots and locations where something happens or is located.

The real thing to explore here is the relationship between the three major power blocks (Governor, Chancellor and Black Lotus Society) and the NPC making them up (The chancellor, his wife, mother, son and so on).

The framing devise is a "case of the week"-style series of crimes to solve, that serve to introduce more NPC and locations to the game world, which, depending on affiliation, choices made and actions taken, will play a recurring role and will become part of the overall R-Map (for example, the Head Judge, a Kuni working as coroner and his eta helper, a high-profile Geisha, the Scorpion spy network, a Crane duelist...).

The overall goal of the campaign is: "You start as lowly Emerald Magistrate Yoriki, try to rise to power", game sessions are a pretty balanced mix of political exploration and trying to solve the cases.

Lorsa

2018-03-22, 03:01 AM

Against my better judgement...

Well, your description is: The DM makes One Way and then the players must do that. So, how is that not a Railroad? Or did you mean something else?

As I have said a million times already. The presence of a railroad is not the same as railroading, or being a jerk DM. It's what you DO with your railroad that matters.

The fact that I also dislike railroads as a game style does not make it badwrongfun for the people that do. It is also such a common style that it deserves its own description.

What makes this ''non-linear''?

The fact that the players may attempt to solve the adventure in any way they want, and that those ways might actually work.

You described ONE path, and said THIS is the Linear game. OK?

Then you described a couple of other paths, and said they are NOT Linear...for no reason.

So can you explain this?

A linear adventure is defined by only having one allowed path be the solution to the adventure. How is that difficult to understand?

Ok, Day one of the adventure, the characters lean about the rats, and decide to do something about it. And like ANY typical TRPG the players can try to do ANYTHING they want to(within some limits) to reach the goal. So your saying, if the players pick one path at random, that way is Linear.....but if the players pick one of the other paths, that is non-linear?

Except ANY typical TRPG does NOT allow the players to try ANYTHING they want to (within some limits) to reach the goal. You seem completely blind to the fact that a very large portion of TRPGs are played in a manner where the DM has planned for exactly one (or maybe two) paths to the goal, and for whatever reasons any other actions, no matter how plausible or logical, will NOT WORK.

If you truly think that this way of playing is badwrongfun, then you should say "I think linear adventures are a jerk move and badwrongfun" and then combine it with "I think open-ended adventures are the only real, true, normal way to play a TRPG and anything else is stupid".

Xuc Xac

2018-03-22, 03:37 AM

Ok, the game starts and the characters are in a grassy field. Ok, so a mile away to the north is the troll bridge. A mile to the south is the temple.

And the characters have no reason to go anywhere.

Why are they in the middle of a grassy field with no idea of what to do or where to go? You have to start with some sort of context: a map and PC backgrounds. Was there a teleportation accident that wiped their memories? In that case, they still have the motivation of "get out of this stupid field and find out where we are, who we are, and what the hell happened" so they'll probably head for the nearest landmark that indicates civilisation.

Starting the PCs in the middle of a field with no context is as bad as starting with "Roll for initiative! What do you do?" without explaining where they are or who they are fighting.

Florian

2018-03-22, 03:59 AM

A linear adventure is defined by only having one allowed path be the solution to the adventure. How is that difficult to understand?

That is not entirely correct. A linear adventure can have multiple paths and/or allow for a lot of creative solutions, as long as you pass the necessary "checkpoints" along the way and try to reach the set "goal" for it.

The Serpent Skull AP is a good example for that:

Part 1: Basic "Island of Dread" exploration game. Checkpoint: Leave the Island.

Part 2-4: Jungle expedition. Chose one of many factions (or strike out on your own), cooperate or kill them all along the way, multiple paths to get there, all methods allowed. Checkpoint: Reach the Lost City.

Part 5-6: Basic "Lost City" exploration game. Again, multiple factions, any approach or method available. Checkpoint: Destroy the Serpent Skull, end the campaign.

The linearity here lies in having to reach the checkpoints in a sequence that can´t be broken and the game only having one goal above all else.

(This setup has a high chance to turn into a railroad if people don't participate right from the start and also accept that personal character goals have no real place in it)

Why are they in the middle of a grassy field with no idea of what to do or where to go?

Because that was the starting situation of the "Forest" example that got talked about some pages back?

jayem

2018-03-22, 04:04 AM

Against my better judgement...
A linear adventure is defined by only having one allowed path be the solution to the adventure. How is that difficult to understand?

The set of possible paths (from a point) is the important thing. Not any individual path.
It's not quite a simple as to say does it contain 1 it's linear. An infinite (but not all ). As you need to take into account 'similar' paths.
There's a non-role play D&D inspired combat game, where you can win or lose each 'scene' but the only difference is a two line closing narration and who starts on the next map. It's not a sandbox.

Though DU does seem unable to handle two things at once .
I tried to have a situation in one of the other threads, where the player could interact with 2 vastly different (pre-existing) situations depending on if they went seaward or landward. Both were progressing to the same ultimate goal (heading North).
Either he could cope with fine individually. But the second he switched from one to the other the other he forgot the work he'd put into it, and the players were bound to choose the one he was working on.

Actually that may be why we're the 'collective'. If he dropped Lorsa's playstyle from memory to discuss Max's style. He's then forgotten Lorsa was different. Even in a sentence Max likes X but Lorsa likes Y. and the over insistence on people only doing one thing at a time (true multitasking may be a myth, and adventuring one that limits normal day to day stuff, but...)

Florian

2018-03-22, 04:13 AM

There's a non-role play D&D inspired combat game, where you can win or lose each 'scene' but the only difference is a two line closing narration and who starts on the next map. It's not a sandbox.

Necropolis 2350 (Savage Worlds) comes with a "Plot Points" campaign. Basically a matrix of choices and win/fail follow ups, that will either move you towards the "main goal" or a "fail state".

Pleh

2018-03-22, 06:31 AM

I think I see part of our problem here.

The distinction between linear and sandbox is largely in the way "plot" is handled, but a couple different uses for that word have been used on this page.

When talking about special relativity with my professor in college, at one point he corrected my thinking by telling me, "you can't switch reference frames in the middle of the problem." I was getting confused on how time and space dilation works and it was because I was trying to view subject A's dilation from subject B's frame of reference, when subject B can only experience dilation from their own frame of reference.

This means if subject A is traveling near light speed, both A and B will seem to be moving slower to one another and neither will seem to be moving faster in time.

Coming back to "plot," we can't allow ourselves to conflate different kinds of plot that are framed in fundamentally different ways and expect it to make sense.

A linear game has a plot like a ship's charter, point by point determining which direction the ship should be going. The charter is routinely inspected and updated in travel as the captain inspects the ship's actual location and velocity, working out how well the plan is going. It is essential not to confuse the charter (planned before the journey) with the ship's log (describing in retrospect the resulting path that was taken) as doing so deliberately conflates descriptive and prescriptive game narratives (which can produce wildly different game styles in varying degrees).

A sandbox is like a plot... of land. It only tells us the boundaries of where we can go as opposed to what is outside the system. The fact that any individual occupant will end up traveling in only one direction at any given moment (and can even devise their own "charters") doesn't change the nature of a game defined by these borders.

We get tricked into believing these borders are "meaningless" when we try to jump between reference frames in a nonsensical manner, as if having a planned set of events is the same thing as planning a place where any number of things can happen. It's generally true that most ttrpgs will have elements of both, but it's taking the generalization too far to say that therefore we have no need for the distinction.

What sense does it make to attempt to conflate the intention for particular things to happen with the intended places where they are meant to occur? Actions and places are about as fundamentally different as any language can be. Verbs and nouns.

The use for the concepts of sandbox and linear are describing the ratio of a DM's focus when plotting. Did they spend more time planning places, or events? Likely they've done at least a little of each if the game is well rounded, but dispensing of the terms can only blind us to this essential distinction that affects the essential flavor of the campaign.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-22, 07:19 AM

Everything starts with characters that want things. Nothing is aimless or pointless when the players have a goal for their characters.
You can have a world that has stuff in it the PCs want, design fun locations and scenarios where that stuff can be found, and then watch the players go for it. Stories form organically from what happens, the GM improvises a lot, there is no planned end to the game. There is no plot.
Note: "Stuff" can be abstract things like power or justice as well as material stuff.

Right, the DM makes the setting, world, story and plot. I guess you can say the DM does ''nothing'' and um ''stuff'' just ''organically'' comes out of ''nowhere'' if you want to.....but I'd guess that, amazingly, it's the DM doing all that.

You can have a game with no plot: it's the Kill, Loot, Repeat game. The characters go to location X, have an encounter....then go to location X2, and have an encounter.

And I would note, yet again, if the players pick something to do: that is a plot.

The average normal TRPG is opened ended and you can play ''forever''. The characters can go on many adventures. That is the classic way. There is the other way, the closed game, where the characters must do X, and then it's over.

But mostly your just talking about the pre game, session 0.1. Where the characters aimless explore and wander....and then eventually pick something to do, and then finally the DM makes that to do. So, yes, the game starts with nothing planned....but eventually it gets to that.

The fact that the players may attempt to solve the adventure in any way they want, and that those ways might actually work.

But that is not in any way, shape or form the definition of the word Linear out side of the wacky way a couple gamers use the term.

A linear adventure is defined by only having one allowed path be the solution to the adventure. How is that difficult to understand?

Again: that is not in any way, shape or form the definition of the word Linear out side of the wacky way a couple gamers use the term.

Except ANY typical TRPG does NOT allow the players to try ANYTHING they want to (within some limits) to reach the goal. You seem completely blind to the fact that a very large portion of TRPGs are played in a manner where the DM has planned for exactly one (or maybe two) paths to the goal, and for whatever reasons any other actions, no matter how plausible or logical, will NOT WORK.

If you truly think that this way of playing is badwrongfun, then you should say "I think linear adventures are a jerk move and badwrongfun" and then combine it with "I think open-ended adventures are the only real, true, normal way to play a TRPG and anything else is stupid".

First, you should be able to agree that the Typical TRPG DOES allow the players to try ANYTHING. Granted I have not read through every TRPG in the world....but are there like a hundred of them that say in the rules something like ''The players are just your dumb pawns and you should not allow them to do anything except follow your exact tyrant controlling demands''.

Second, yes, as I have said again and again: There are Jerk DMs and there are Bad Dms(and Lazy and Casual DMs). This does not ''make'' the game anything...it's just the way that one lone single DM chooses to do things.

So, yes, Billy the Casual DM does show up on game night with nothing prepared at all. The players pick something to do, and Billy just is all cool and ''improvs'' everything. And Billy, just makes one path...''yea, guys the dragon is over at dragon mountain, so you guys just go over there and charge and attack", because he is a bad Casual DM.

Why are they in the middle of a grassy field with no idea of what to do or where to go? You have to start with some sort of context: a map and PC backgrounds. Was there a teleportation accident that wiped their memories? In that case, they still have the motivation of "get out of this stupid field and find out where we are, who we are, and what the hell happened" so they'll probably head for the nearest landmark that indicates civilisation.

Starting the PCs in the middle of a field with no context is as bad as starting with "Roll for initiative! What do you do?" without explaining where they are or who they are fighting.

The game has to start somewhere. You can say the characters are sitting at home, drinking in a tavern or whatever. Still every game has a ''metagame'' starting point when the game play starts.

Thrudd

2018-03-22, 11:30 AM

Right, the DM makes the setting, world, story and plot. I guess you can say the DM does ''nothing'' and um ''stuff'' just ''organically'' comes out of ''nowhere'' if you want to.....but I'd guess that, amazingly, it's the DM doing all that.

You can have a game with no plot: it's the Kill, Loot, Repeat game. The characters go to location X, have an encounter....then go to location X2, and have an encounter.

And I would note, yet again, if the players pick something to do: that is a plot.

That's not a plot. In this context A plot is: "the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence."
This isn't a secret gamer-only definition- its the real, actual English definition.

A plot in a game is a sequence of events devised by the GM. This basically necessitates that actions taken by the players can't be allowed to divert from that sequence. That's how video games with stories work, because by necessity everything needs to be programmed ahead of time.

If someone was running Oceans Eleven as an RPG, you would not use the plot from the movie. You would design the casino, the casino boss NPC, the security guards and workers and gamblers. You design the security procedures surrounding the money going in and out, and the timing of things, like the big fight is on Sunday night. Then the players, in the role of Danny and co., will figure out how they will pull off the heist, and the GM will adjudicate the results of their actions. It might turn out that they fail horribly and everyone gets killed or arrested. The only control you need is in the pre-game where you tell the players that they are going to be playing thieving con-men who are looking for a big score. That isn't a plot, it's setting the parameters for the game. You aren't telling a story, you don't have a plot, because you don't know what will happen.

1337 b4k4

2018-03-22, 08:43 PM

And the characters have no reason to go anywhere. So, sure, they can randomly pick a direction and go that way. If they randomly go to a encounter site they can have the encounter. But it's pointless and meaningless.

Why is it pointless and meaningless? What gives one action in an RPG meaning as opposed to another action?

Well, why is there no plot?

Because the GM has not created a plot.

Now, of course, I'd guess that when you say ''plot'' your saying ''horrible jerk DM Railroad badwrongfun'', right? Because you think an RPG plot is like a novel or movie plot and you don't get that they are different.

You would guess wrong. In fact, 100% of your issues in this thread with understanding have been because rather than listening to what other people are saying, you just assume they're saying something you made up in your own head. Here's a proposal, the next time you start thinking or saying "i guess when you say X you really mean Y" you should stop, realize you're more likely than not wrong and go back and re-read.

Like in the Troll Bridge above IS a plot....though yes, it is a silly, dumb, cartoonist one...but still a plot. You have PCs learn about troll---->PCs decide to do something--->Pcs do something--->Conclusion. See it's a simple plot (and note it does NOT in any way have the DM forcing the players or characters to ''do" anything that is not part of the setting/rules/common sense. Like if the PCs want to encounter the troll personally they ''have to'' go to the troll bridge.)

That's a useless definition of a plot, because by your argument, all games have a plot, otherwise they're meaningless and random and not a game. But by the definition you just presented, any time the PCs decide to do something and then do it and reach a conclusion, they have participated in a plot, and therefore by definition nothing they do can be meaningless and random. In fact, by this definition a session in which one PC licks the ground, then rolls on the floor, then takes a dump in the woods and then spends the rest of the session carving notches on every tree they see is still following a plot. But also according to you such a session would be meaningless and random and thus not a normal RPG.

So which is it? Is everything the players do by default a plot, in which case nothing can be random and meaningless, or is it possible to have actions without a plot?

Right, the DM makes the setting, world, story and plot. I guess you can say the DM does ''nothing'' and um ''stuff'' just ''organically'' comes out of ''nowhere'' if you want to.....but I'd guess that, amazingly, it's the DM doing all that.

No one in this thread except you has EVER said the DM does "nothing". In fact, multiple times in this thread you have been told that a sandbox can actually require the DM to do MORE than they would in a linear game. Are you actually reading any of the responses you get or are you just scanning for key words at this point?

You can have a game with no plot: it's the Kill, Loot, Repeat game. The characters go to location X, have an encounter....then go to location X2, and have an encounter.

Unpossible. You just said that PCs decide to do something -> PCs do something -> Conclusion is a plot. So no, according to you it is impossible to have a game with no plot.

But that is not in any way, shape or form the definition of the word Linear out side of the wacky way a couple gamers use the term.

And by "a couple gamers" you pretty much mean the entirety of the online gaming community. Seriously the terms as they've been used here are pretty well established (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=linear+game) terms understood (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sandbox+game) by legions of gamers (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/662/what-is-sandbox-play)

Mordaedil

2018-03-23, 02:06 AM

Let's not forget the opening post for this thread has this gem in the first few lines.

I blame the Role Playing Video Gamers.

Cause that's a balanced and reasonable postion to take after 30-50 years of this being a thing.

Florian

2018-03-23, 03:46 AM

Why is it pointless and meaningless? What gives one action in an RPG meaning as opposed to another action?

Multiple things.

Most RPG systems come along with some kind of reward structure to indicate which actions are part of the actual game and which are outside/irrelevant to it. This roughly defines where the line between meaning and meaningless should be drawn. The clearer refined the reared structure is, the better (and the more people, especially with a D&D background, will complain that they're forced t play the game in a certain way, which is the whole intention of the exercise).

The second part has to do with the format and, by extension, the social contract of the game. Disregarding asynchronous formats like PbP or PbM, it will come down to what the game is "driven" by and whether it is PVP-based or group-based (VtM vs. D&D). This is where, say, a character-driven game will be different from other types (i.e. plot-driven, drama-driven, etc.)

So, it might sound a bit rough, but someone who misses engaging with anything that is connected to the basic reward structure, misses the point of using the specific game system chosen for their game.

Which also means that discussion what is "meaningless" will also have to deal with what system is used and what game is played.

Lorsa

2018-03-23, 07:28 AM

But that is not in any way, shape or form the definition of the word Linear out side of the wacky way a couple gamers use the term.

Again: that is not in any way, shape or form the definition of the word Linear out side of the wacky way a couple gamers use the term.

It is the way the word linear is used in RPG contexts. It relates to the standard definition and helps make a distinction intuitive (for everyone but you it seems).

First, you should be able to agree that the Typical TRPG DOES allow the players to try ANYTHING. Granted I have not read through every TRPG in the world....but are there like a hundred of them that say in the rules something like ''The players are just your dumb pawns and you should not allow them to do anything except follow your exact tyrant controlling demands''.

Second, yes, as I have said again and again: There are Jerk DMs and there are Bad Dms(and Lazy and Casual DMs). This does not ''make'' the game anything...it's just the way that one lone single DM chooses to do things.

The "game" in the context we have been talking about in this thread has ALWAYS been 'the way the DM chooses to do things'.

The game is what takes place at the table. Otherwise you are talking about a game system, which is a different story entirely.

The distinction between "linear" and "sandbox" and whatnot, is always referred to the different ways DMs choose to do things.

You can disagree on the terms if you like (which is a rather pointless discussion in semantics), but you can't really refuse to acknowledge any distinction whatsoever. Or well, you can, but that doesn't make it non-existent, it just makes you blind.

It's like claiming that "chairs" and "tables" are the exact same thing and you can't understand why people would have two different words for them when clearly they are the same thing. If everyone else can understand the distinction between "chair" and "table" but you can't, chances are the error is on your side.

What would you call a game where the DM picks both the adventure's goal and how the players should solve it?

What would you call a game where the players pick both the adventure's goal and how to solve it?

What would you call a game where the players pick the goal, but the DM the solution?

And lastly, what would you call a game where the DM picks the goal, but the players the solution?

Darth Ultron

2018-03-23, 07:33 AM

That's not a plot. In this context A plot is: "the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence."
This isn't a secret gamer-only definition- its the real, actual English definition.

The definition of a word changes depending on it's context, and how it is used. The word Character is used for both Movies and TRPG, but it's not the same thing. The same is true of the word Plot.

A plot in a game is a sequence of events devised by the GM. This basically necessitates that actions taken by the players can't be allowed to divert from that sequence. That's how video games with stories work, because by necessity everything needs to be programmed ahead of time.

See, here, you are using the Novel definition of plot for a TRPG. But a novel is just someone writing what they want, and a TRPG is a group activity, so it would seem that even at just a glance, they are NOT the same thing.

If someone was running Oceans Eleven as an RPG, you would not use the plot from the movie. You would design the casino, the casino boss NPC, the security guards and workers and gamblers. You design the security procedures surrounding the money going in and out, and the timing of things, like the big fight is on Sunday night. Then the players, in the role of Danny and co., will figure out how they will pull off the heist, and the GM will adjudicate the results of their actions. It might turn out that they fail horribly and everyone gets killed or arrested. The only control you need is in the pre-game where you tell the players that they are going to be playing thieving con-men who are looking for a big score. That isn't a plot, it's setting the parameters for the game. You aren't telling a story, you don't have a plot, because you don't know what will happen.

It sure is odd how you type that whole above paragraph and then just say ''it is nothing''. In the above example, the plot story is the heist.

See your thinking of the plot as like a narrow line where the ending is already known and the poor players are just forced to play along by a jerk DM. Or like a Video Game.

For an TRPG the plot is more like a River: you can predict events that you know will happen and likely will happen and have a good chance of happening; but some other events might happen. No one knows the ending, but again there are predictable end goals. The players are free to 'swim around' in the River, but it will always be moving forward(and it does make sense for the players to swim with the current...but they don't have to).

Why is it pointless and meaningless? What gives one action in an RPG meaning as opposed to another action?

If your just randomly killing monsters, even more so in some sort of roll playing arena combat, it's pointless and meaningless. Your character does not even need a name or anything but combat mechanics. Kill, loo, repeat....over and over and over again. Yes, you can play the game this way...but most people won't enjoy it for long.

Because the GM has not created a plot.

Well, that Dm needs to step up and do the job then.

That's a useless definition of a plot, because by your argument, all games have a plot, otherwise they're meaningless and random and not a game. But by the definition you just presented, any time the PCs decide to do something and then do it and reach a conclusion, they have participated in a plot, and therefore by definition nothing they do can be meaningless and random. In fact, by this definition a session in which one PC licks the ground, then rolls on the floor, then takes a dump in the woods and then spends the rest of the session carving notches on every tree they see is still following a plot. But also according to you such a session would be meaningless and random and thus not a normal RPG.

First, note I' only talking about TRPGs like D&D and related games.

Second, they are still a game, no matter how it's played.

Third, meaningless and random, does not have the huge negative stigma you give them for no reason.

Yes, ones the PCs decide to do an Adventure, it's not meaningless and random. I've said that several times. And the PC being a jerk in the woods is not following a plot, they are just being a jerk and wasting time.

So which is it? Is everything the players do by default a plot, in which case nothing can be random and meaningless, or is it possible to have actions without a plot?

As I have said, you can have endless random and meaningless actions with no plot. And in fact there are whole games and game systems made just for this.

No one in this thread except you has EVER said the DM does "nothing". In fact, multiple times in this thread you have been told that a sandbox can actually require the DM to do MORE than they would in a linear game. Are you actually reading any of the responses you get or are you just scanning for key words at this point?

No one says the word, they just describe the non-action.

Cause that's a balanced and reasonable postion to take after 30-50 years of this being a thing.

Well, it has only been a thing for the last ten years or so.

I think I see part of our problem here.

I think your descriptions here are good. Wonders if science can help...

But I would point out any Average TRPG (one like D&D) adventure is like Light: It is both a Particle that goes from location/event/spot to location/event/spot (Linear) AND a Wave spreading around touching everything (so called sandboxing) At Exactly the Same Time. Now, this does not make sense...but it is, as far as we know, exactly the way light works.

So a Plot, in an TRPG Adventure is like a Photon Wave: There are Encounters for it to hit And an Adventure Setting it can cover.

And for more science...The Photon Wave Characters in a story plot adventure can go where ever they want, no Cosmic DM forces them to go anywhere. The Encounters are gravity wells, they do pull the Photon Wave Characters towards them, but they are not absolute attractors.

And this all goes back to page one: All Average Normal TRPG (like D&D and similar games) are always Linear and a so-called sandbox...so much so that neither term need be used.

Mordaedil

2018-03-23, 07:57 AM

Well, it has only been a thing for the last ten years or so.
That is historically inaccurate.

We had D&D games back in the 80's with the golden box games and first game was called like DND. We're not in the 90's, so it's way older than ten years, unless you've been living under a rock. Most people got their introduction into D&D via games like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, which are 15-20 years old at this point. These video games have been a part of D&D since 2 decades after it's inception.

They are not at fault for anything.

Pleh

2018-03-23, 09:34 AM

Wonders if science can help...

Not so much in this case.

There's no reason the quantum/relativitic nature of light would have any resemblance to plot.

Your argument validates a person *choosing* to define plot in your manner, but it does not demonstrate superiority over other methods for defining it. Essentially, all you said was, "but light works this way, so plot does, too."

That is not logical. It is logical to say, "plot *can* work this way" not that it therefore must.

But even if we DO insist on using light as a metaphor, then recall that you can constrain light with an aperture to eliminate its dual nature (double slit experiment). A Linear or Sandbox game could be compared to light experiencing such constraints.

Therefore, the terms are definitively not meaningless and we have overturned your premise.

1337 b4k4

2018-03-23, 05:55 PM

Well, that Dm needs to step up and do the job then.

You haven't explained why having a plot is necessary.

As I have said, you can have endless random and meaningless actions with no plot. And in fact there are whole games and game systems made just for this.

You just stated:

Well, why is there no plot? The answer is: there is always a plot.

These are contradictory statements. Is there always a plot, or is it possible to have a game with no plot? You can't have it both ways.

No one says the word, they just describe the non-action.

To quote myself: "100% of your issues in this thread with understanding have been because rather than listening to what other people are saying, you just assume they're saying something you made up in your own head. Here's a proposal, the next time you start thinking or saying "i guess when you say X you really mean Y" you should stop, realize you're more likely than not wrong and go back and re-read."

Well, it has only been a thing for the last ten years or so.

If by the last ten years, you mean since at least the 1980's. To whit:

The Linear Adventure
A linear adventure is one in which the story line advances through a series of encounters that must be played in a certain order. While the PCs handle each encounter as it arises, they are given little or no choice as to where they go between encounters, unless they want to stop or turn back.
...
The Open Campaign
This type of game de-emphasizesthe DM’s story, and instead relies almost completely on player character choices to deter- mine the course of events. In an open campaign, it is the DM’s responsibilitytocreateaninterestingworldforthePCst oexplore and adventure in.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-24, 10:17 AM

That is historically inaccurate.

.

I'm talking about the video game culture

You haven't explained why having a plot is necessary.

It is not necessary to just play the random casual game. It is just necessary for a TRPG with anything more then that. The 'plot' is what is happening in the game in the 'reality' sense.

These are contradictory statements. Is there always a plot, or is it possible to have a game with no plot? You can't have it both ways.

Again, I'm only talking about a D&D like game with an Adventure(and an adventure has a plot), not every game in existence.

To quote myself: "100% of your issues in this thread with understanding have been because rather than listening to what other people are saying, you just assume they're saying something you made up in your own head. Here's a proposal, the next time you start thinking or saying "i guess when you say X you really mean Y" you should stop, realize you're more likely than not wrong and go back and re-read."

No, the problem is I can't get a useful answer to what a sandbox is.

1.Most just use Sandbox=cool, and that is just not helpful at all.
2.Many say a sandbox is something that is part of all types of TRPGs, and saying everything has something is again not helpful.
3.A lot of people say it's when the DM does little or nothing, but this just makes no sense as the DM is doing nearly everything.

If by the last ten years, you mean since at least the 1980's. To whit:

Just as it's is written in an old, outdated book does not make it right. The author there, like many in this thread, is making the mistake of Linear = Railroad.
.

jindra34

2018-03-24, 10:00 PM

Lets try a couple of additions based on common gamer (or at least common gamer as I've encountered) held thoughts:
1. You can't tell what kind of game a Good GM has run just by looking at the events in a story board style after the fact.
2. Good GMs generally don't need, ask for or receive advice.
3. Good GMing isn't something that can be explained well, its a mix of gut, read and intuition.
4. Advice then, given to mediocre and worse GMs, is to help the attain that state.

So what is a sandbox from that? Its a game (rules+world) where the GM focuses on developing the current state of the world and lets it develop as the rationality of the characters (both player and not) from there. If it goes on long enough (20 hours of play or so for a good GM, rapidly getting longer as the GM's skills go down) the prep will even start to look like a linear game, as both sides can calibrate and dial in their expectations.

EDIT: Or maybe another way of describing a sandbox: Letting the game go out of control, yet keeping it rational and fun.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-24, 11:27 PM

EDIT: Or maybe another way of describing a sandbox: Letting the game go out of control, yet keeping it rational and fun.

Again, though, your just saying a sandbox is like other games. So what even say 'sandbox'. So it's a meaningless phrase.

Lorsa

2018-03-25, 03:18 AM

The definition of a word changes depending on it's context, and how it is used. The word Character is used for both Movies and TRPG, but it's not the same thing. The same is true of the word Plot.

Except, apparently, for the word 'linear'.

Florian

2018-03-25, 03:44 AM

Except, apparently, for the word 'linear'.

Not really. "Linearity" can take many forms, from a timeline, a chain of events that are based on inherent logic or a "plot point" design. Most of them have a linear character because they happen outside of direct player control.

RazorChain

2018-03-25, 03:46 AM

Again, though, your just saying a sandbox is like other games. So what even say 'sandbox'. So it's a meaningless phrase.

You are right, sandbox is a term for a normal game where the GM places things like dungeons and plots before the games starts then the PC's are free to roam around and interact with the setting. People are in awe by it's non-linearity until they stumble upon a linear plot and follow that. Then the game becomes a normal linear game instead of normal sandbox non-linear game. When the players finish that plot the game reverts back to it's normal sandboxy non-linear nature and the PC's will again wander aimlessly and randomly about until they find something to do.

By then Bob is so fed up that he refuses to roll dice because he thinks that is roll-play. By then the game has become a diceless normal sandboxy non-linear game. John and Billy can't cope with the diceless nature of the game without being inebriated so they have open up some beers and have some pretzel. Take note of now the nature of the game has devolved into beer and pretzel diceless sandboxy non-linear game.

At this point in time all the players have been ignoring poor GM Sams carefully crafted but randomly scattered plot hooks so he has been forced to improvise so now it's an improvised beer and pretzel diceless normal sandboxy non-linear game. But poor Sam is getting fed up by his players who are getting obnoxious and letting their PC's commit random acts of violence, Sam tries to rein his players in by subtly railroading them so now the game has become illusionist beer and pretzel normal sandboxy railroading game of murderhoboism.

Bob who hates railroading finds out about Sams deceptive railroading techniques and confronts him about it. Sam breaks down in tears and give up some of his GM's powers so the players get some narrative control so now the game is a beer and pretzel murderhoboing normal sandboxy non-linear game where the players have narrative control.

So my conclusion is that a NORMAL GAME IS A MEANINGLESS PHRASE

Now fight me!

http://mrwgifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Morpheus-Come-At-Me-Bro-Reaction-Gif-In-The-Matrix.gif

Pleh

2018-03-25, 04:46 AM

2. Good GMs generally don't need, ask for or receive advice.
4. Advice then, given to mediocre and worse GMs, is to help the attain that state.

I would tend to disagree. Good GMs never stop learning, are not immune to making mistakes, and can still advance their skill by learning from new players whose lack of game experience can provide unique perspective.

jindra34

2018-03-25, 07:24 AM

Again, though, your just saying a sandbox is like other games. So what even say 'sandbox'. So it's a meaningless phrase.

Lets put it this way: In non-sandbox games GM's attempts to keep control of the narrative, while keeping the game rational and fun. Does that clarify things a bit more?

Which explains why people generally feel sandbox games are better. The GM only has a certain amount of energy to devote to keeping the game, and by removing (or more accurately offloading) duties they can put more effort into keeping the game fun. Huh... having to think about these things and vocalize them WELL is actually helping me understand why certain GM styles end up working better.

jayem

2018-03-25, 08:38 AM

1. You can't tell what kind of game a Good GM has run just by looking at the events in a story board style after the fact.

I think that's partially true, depending on how much detail you go.
Even at a crude level of detail, I think there'd be some traces so you'd end up with your 'I think this is linear' pile containing say 55% 'this was played linearly' games.
E.g. finding only the legendary sword of Dragon slaying by 'coincidence' when on the run from a dragon, probably a linear game. Building a dragon slaying ballista, more probably sandbox.
Of course there will be that one game where the GM planned for them to find rope... or the random number table turned up legendary sword. And many more examples where things aren't so extreme.

When you get to look at the full detail and see their failures (and what they couldn't even try to attempt) as well as what worked then they'll definitely sometimes be traces. Even then you still can't often be certain.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-25, 09:19 AM

So my conclusion is that a NORMAL GAME IS A MEANINGLESS PHRASE

Now fight me!]

I'm not here to fight, but your conclusion is wrong.

Over the last generation or so, there has been a huge misguided push to change the world by getting rid of anything normal, and making everything both anything and nothing at the same time. It was always doomed to failure from the start, but it still ripples around and around.

The first big problem is you can't just call everything and anything ''ok''. Every quickly, no matter how hard you try, your going to get a list of 'wrong' things. And that leads you right back to deciding what a normal game is and what it is not.

The second big problem is that without a baseline normal, you can't say any game is different. Something can only be different, when compared to something else. And very often that something else needs to be the normal baseline.

Lets put it this way: In non-sandbox games GM's attempts to keep control of the narrative, while keeping the game rational and fun. Does that clarify things a bit more?

But there is no way for the DM to ''loose control''. Everything that happens in the gameworld, except the tiny bit the characters do, is because the DM does or does not do it. So, sure, to a Clueless Player, it might look like they have ''surprised the DM'' and ''caused them to loose control of the game" , but that never happens(unless the DM is a Bad DM, of course).

Which explains why people generally feel sandbox games are better. The GM only has a certain amount of energy to devote to keeping the game, and by removing (or more accurately offloading) duties they can put more effort into keeping the game fun. Huh... having to think about these things and vocalize them WELL is actually helping me understand why certain GM styles end up working better.

I agree that being a good DM is hard and time consuming. Though, you do seem to be talking about the Casual DM that does ''not'' have the time.

jindra34

2018-03-25, 09:46 AM

But there is no way for the DM to ''loose control''. Everything that happens in the gameworld, except the tiny bit the characters do, is because the DM does or does not do it. So, sure, to a Clueless Player, it might look like they have ''surprised the DM'' and ''caused them to loose control of the game" , but that never happens(unless the DM is a Bad DM, of course).

It is possible however for the GM to decide not to put any effort into maintaining control. To give it up essentially. And your falling back into bad linguist mode. Suprising the GM is completely different from the GM not controlling the narrative. In one they failed to see something, in the other they just chose not to favor one option over another.

napoleon_in_rag

2018-03-25, 11:00 AM

That is historically inaccurate.

We had D&D games back in the 80's with the golden box games and first game was called like DND. We're not in the 90's, so it's way older than ten years, unless you've been living under a rock. Most people got their introduction into D&D via games like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, which are 15-20 years old at this point. These video games have been a part of D&D since 2 decades after it's inception.

They are not at fault for anything.

I agree. I used to love the old gold box DOS games.

Actually, one of the first video games based on D&D, Wizardry, Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is a total Sandbox. There is no plot. You can eventually fight Werdna, but you don't have to. I think it dates from the early 80s. You can play the NES version online for free.

I would argue that MMORPGs are truer sandboxes than anything in an TTRPG. You can follow the plot OR craft things OR PvP OR just chat OR explore aimlessly.

Florian

2018-03-25, 11:11 AM

I would argue that MMORPGs are truer sandboxes than anything in an TTRPG. You can follow the plot OR craft things OR PvP OR just chat OR explore aimlessly.

And here we are again, at the difference between "game", "play" and "toy", that some people seem to have a hard grasp when it comes to TTRPG. This is part of why we all talk by each other when it comes to the term "sandbox" and also, as RazorChain noted, with the term "normal game", because we´re apparently mixing up activities again.

Please keep in mind that RPG is a compound of "role playing" and "game". DU mentioned one phrase over and over again in this thread: "The start of the actual gameplay" (paraphrased). Now I mentioned a bit upthread that it´s quite easy to identify what the intended "actual game" is with most systems, by looking how the inbuilt reward structure works.

Frozen_Feet

2018-03-25, 11:21 AM

That is historically inaccurate.

It is not just inaccurate, it is backwards. If you look at history of D&D and videogames, you will see that attempts to computerize D&D started almost as soon as there was D&D, and this happened in time and place where videogaming was first becoming a thing.

Pretty much all the "bad videogamey traits" are something that videogames copied from tabletop games, not the other way around.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-25, 12:06 PM

It is possible however for the GM to decide not to put any effort into maintaining control. To give it up essentially. And your falling back into bad linguist mode. Suprising the GM is completely different from the GM not controlling the narrative. In one they failed to see something, in the other they just chose not to favor one option over another.

Yes, the Casual or Lazy DM will often put no effort at all into the game. It's just one of the reasons they are both Bad Dms.

Pretty much all the "bad videogamey traits" are something that videogames copied from tabletop games, not the other way around.

Not true at all. It is a classic case of trying to fit a round peg in a square hole: it won't work.

You take a game, that with a real person in control: The DM and try to cram that into a tiny, limited computer program. Even with many people making the program, there is a huge limit to how much they can put into it. This is why video games have things like rivers you can't cross, as that is simply not programed into the game. In a TRPG the DM can have any NPC talk to the PCs and say anything; the video game can only have the NPC say only what is programed into it.

And a lot of people play a lot of video games. And they play the so called ''rpg'' ones too. They click a button to ignore some dumb flavor text and then hit two buttons to do a super awesome animated cartoon with cool sound effects; and then they think they are the super grandmaster RPG gamer and can play any TRPG.

Florian

2018-03-25, 12:11 PM

Going by the frequency of "Help me build (name of video game character)!" requests here and over at the Paizo boards, there's something to it.

Quertus

2018-03-25, 12:50 PM

Lets put it this way: In non-sandbox games GM's attempts to keep control of the narrative, while keeping the game rational and fun. Does that clarify things a bit more?

Which explains why people generally feel sandbox games are better. The GM only has a certain amount of energy to devote to keeping the game, and by removing (or more accurately offloading) duties they can put more effort into keeping the game fun. Huh... having to think about these things and vocalize them WELL is actually helping me understand why certain GM styles end up working better.

I just wanna emphasize this bit.

One programming maxim is, "all good programmers are lazy". Head space is finite, attention is finite, energy is finite. If someone is spending effort reinventing the wheel, or doing things the hard way, that's that much effort they aren't putting into making a better product, for whatever definition of better.

Same thing for games. Every bit of effort the GM puts into "the plot" is effort that they didn't put somewhere else. And "the plot" is something most players are fully capable of managing.

Ever seen those bad managers who don't know how to delegate, and try to do everything themselves? Same thing.

So, a real sandbox fanboy might claim that sandbox = good game, because having that label shows that the GM knows how to delegate, and won't waste time and effort creating "the plot", when he knows he can trust the players to handle that end, and will instead put more effort into making a better game, with richer content than GMs who waste their time on plot.

On a less fanboy note, the sandbox label indicates that the GM abdicates responsibility for the plot - both the goal and the path to said goal - to the players.

Frozen_Feet

2018-03-25, 02:21 PM

Darth_Ultron: I have zero reasons to think you know more of videogames than I do. Your view is obsolete, informed by past limitations of computation. You draw a line between what a human can imagine and what can be programmed, but this line is an illusion. In principle, any gameable scenario that can be imagined can also be programmed, given enough computational resources. And on the flipside, in practice humans are not as unlimited as the hype claims.

I can take computer games as old as Star Control 2, Betrayal at Krondor and Exile 3: Ruined World as examples, and they already had campaigns and dialogue way more impressive than what your average joe can GM at the tabletop. You can find these games for free today, so go ahead, play them, and after you've played them you can maybe have an informed discussion with me about how games work.

RazorChain

2018-03-25, 02:25 PM

I'm not here to fight, but your conclusion is wrong.

Normal game is an assumption, so if someone who partakes in your games asks you if you are running a "normal" game then that someone is using your games as a yardstick for normalcy. If that someone plays in my game he might maintain that I don't run a "normal" game but you do.

For all we know a normal game is where a number of people sit down to play an RPG where one is a Game master and the rest is players. So people dressing up in costumes running around in the forest with foam swords is not a "normal" RPG...in fact thats Live Action Roleplaying.

If you are going to maintain that something is normal then you have to establish normality. What is normal?

Over the last generation or so, there has been a huge misguided push to change the world by getting rid of anything normal, and making everything both anything and nothing at the same time. It was always doomed to failure from the start, but it still ripples around and around.

You can't get rid of anything that is normal, if you push away anything that is normal then you replace it with something else and THAT becomes normal. Normal is a ill defined yardstick of what is usual, regular, natural.

The first big problem is you can't just call everything and anything ''ok''. Every quickly, no matter how hard you try, your going to get a list of 'wrong' things. And that leads you right back to deciding what a normal game is and what it is not.

Why can't I call everything and anything "ok"? I mean you don't have the exlusive right to it? If we are going to eliminate the list of wrong things then we have to agree upon them first. The wrongfulness of that list is getting in the way of clearly defining the normality of the normal game. If we can just get people together and make that list then we can pick out the most common things that make up the regular normal olde game. If we manage to do that then I can retract my statement that a normal game is a meaningless phrase.

Let's just face it Darth Ultron..."sandbox" isn't even a phrase, it's a word, "A normal game" at least is a phrase so it can be meaningless.

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-25, 02:40 PM

And here we are again, at the difference between "game", "play" and "toy", that some people seem to have a hard grasp when it comes to TTRPG.

Perhaps because it's a very peculiar and not that widespread way of looking at RPGs, which for many gamers really has very little resemblance to how they actually do and experience gaming.

jayem

2018-03-25, 02:48 PM

I just wanna emphasize this bit.

One programming maxim is, "all good programmers are lazy". Head space is finite, attention is finite, energy is finite. If someone is spending effort reinventing the wheel, or doing things the hard way, that's that much effort they aren't putting into making a better product, for whatever definition of better.

And of course it cuts both ways

Energy spent maintaining the setting (where they might not even go) is energy lost from planning future events. While if the players are given a choice then future plans can be wasted. So you could chose to fix that (so you give the future plans, the plot as it were, the full attention it deserves). And now as they definitely won't go there, the extra setting maintenance is pure wasted effort.

And as you say. Energy spend maintaining the future events (when the preceeding event may not even occur)...

Of course you could have some bits where you've taken the first approach and some where you've take the second. Or a slightly less refined plot and a bit of setting, or slightly less setting and a bit of plot. But the extremes still exist.
Could we invent a name for these two extremes

Quertus

2018-03-25, 03:41 PM

And of course it cuts both ways

Energy spent maintaining the setting (where they might not even go) is energy lost from planning future events. While if the players are given a choice then future plans can be wasted. So you could chose to fix that (so you give the future plans, the plot as it were, the full attention it deserves). And now as they definitely won't go there, the extra setting maintenance is pure wasted effort.

And as you say. Energy spend maintaining the future events (when the preceeding event may not even occur)...

Of course you could have some bits where you've taken the first approach and some where you've take the second. Or a slightly less refined plot and a bit of setting, or slightly less setting and a bit of plot. But the extremes still exist.
Could we invent a name for these two extremes

Oh, gosh, that's a tough one. One cares about maintaining the setting; the other, the plot. So perhaps setting-focused plot hander-offer, and plot-focused light settinger?

Now we need a word or phrase to describe the behavior of the plot-focused light settinger when he tries to keep the game to his established plot, sometimes poorly.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-25, 05:39 PM

Same thing for games. Every bit of effort the GM puts into "the plot" is effort that they didn't put somewhere else. And "the plot" is something most players are fully capable of managing.

A agree here. The Plot is just one of a great many things a DM must handle and control, and they sure should not put all the focus there.

But putting the plot in the players hands is a bit silly. Like sure, the DM can just stop doing anything and sit back and do nothing. Then wait for the players to do something. But then the DM has to get up and make that anyway. So what was really gained? The players get a couple seconds where they feel good?

Darth_Ultron: I have zero reasons to think you know more of videogames than I do.

As I have said many times, I'm not a video game person.

And on the flipside, in practice humans are not as unlimited as the hype claims.

Except what you say does not make sense. Every video game has very clear limits. You can't go past that river or whatever at the edge of the map. NPC in a game can only say a couple words and they can not interact with a player character in any real sense.

And I never was implying that all humans or even DMs were great: I think I have been always clear that their are bad DMs.

If you are going to maintain that something is normal then you have to establish normality. What is normal?

Well, only talking about the classic D&D and related games(not every game in existence), Normal is: A gamesmaster will all the power and control in the game; a couple players who willing choose to only have the very limited power and control of a single character. The game can be played as a random mess('a hex crawl'), but the vast majority of gamers choose to play the game with more structure: Adventures. At the most basic, an adventure is an obstacle/conflict that the characters must over come to achieve a set goal. This all requires a plot, story, linear frame work and the game world to make sense ''close to reality''. The players, with in the games limits and their characters limits are free to try anything to reach the goal. The GM is making both the general setting and the adventure setting, and does make paths towards the adventure goal; but again, the players are in no way forced to follow them.

I think that covers the major points for just this thread. The main one is, in any normal game, the PCs can try anything, within reason.

You can't get rid of anything that is normal, if you push away anything that is normal then you replace it with something else and THAT becomes normal. Normal is a ill defined yardstick of what is usual, regular, natural.

And this is exactly what happens.

Why can't I call everything and anything "ok"? I mean you don't have the exlusive right to it? If we are going to eliminate the list of wrong things then we have to agree upon them first. The wrongfulness of that list is getting in the way of clearly defining the normality of the normal game. If we can just get people together and make that list then we can pick out the most common things that make up the regular normal olde game. If we manage to do that then I can retract my statement that a normal game is a meaningless phrase.

You can call anything you want anything you want...it does not change anything.

And it's not about 'votes', you can't decide real things that way: You can't trust the Majority. Just as Everyone thinks something, does not make it right. Just look at, for example, what ''everyone'' thinks about D&D.

Frozen_Feet

2018-03-25, 05:53 PM

As I have said many times, I'm not a video game person.

Then I must amend my statement to "I have reason to think you know less about video games than me, and no-one has a reason to pay attention to your remarks about videogames".

Quertus

2018-03-25, 06:24 PM

A agree here. The Plot is just one of a great many things a DM must handle and control, and they sure should not put all the focus there.

But putting the plot in the players hands is a bit silly. Like sure, the DM can just stop doing anything and sit back and do nothing. Then wait for the players to do something. But then the DM has to get up and make that anyway. So what was really gained? The players get a couple seconds where they feel good? .

Well, see, imagine that the GM created the king, the orcs, the noble, the church, the merchants... the princess, and the dragon. Sure, the GM created the plot hook, "orcs are invading (and the king is hard to convince to help)", and "the dragon abducts the princess (and threatens to eat her unless it's demands are met)".

Now, the GM could create the plot, "PCs fail to convince the king, are approached by the noble, who helps the PCs (and later attempts to use them to overthrow the king)." As well as the plot, "PCs collect the seven shards of the Sword McGuffin, and use it to slay the Dragon".

Or the GM could let the players create the plot. Which might look like that. Or it might look like, "let the orcs invade, give the dragon spices from the merchants to make the princess taste better, befriend the dragon, use it to drive off the orcs, and then take over the kingdom for themselves". Or it might look like, "steal the Book of Peace, trade it to a god to travel back in time to set up an additional, hidden power, and establish a magocracy." Or any number of other possibilities.

The GM never need touch the plot. All the GM has to do is roleplay the characters he has already created, and adjudicate the rules. And, by spending time on one less thing, he has more time to spend doing better world building, making better NPCs, role-playing those NPCs better, etc.

Or so one theory goes.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-25, 06:46 PM

The GM never need touch the plot. All the GM has to do is roleplay the characters he has already created, and adjudicate the rules. And, by spending time on one less thing, he has more time to spend doing better world building, making better NPCs, role-playing those NPCs better, etc.

So here, for this example, you seem to be talking about a Player Controlled Game where the DM just does what the Players want. If the DM agrees and rolls over it's fine, but otherwise you get a very forced game play(and the players railroading the DM).

Of course good players and even average players don't want control of the game: They don't want to be side table DMs making and creating and controlling the world. They want to play a character IN the world.

So this type of game only comes from the bad players. And it's bad enough when the players know all the game world plot details, and then have to be silly and pretend thier characters don't know any of it....but it just becomes a non-game when the players just start to ''give their characters stuff''

But maybe your talking about a more normal game....but that has the DM in control of the plot, so it does not fit. In the normal game, the Dm makes everything, so the players can't ''just say and then'' there is a Orb of Dragon Slaying by the tree. The players can't ''say'' anything...they can ask and hope for and wish for: but it's still 100% up to the DM if something exists or not, even a plot.

And even if the players surprise the bad DM with the wacky idea of something like ''make friends with the dragon'', it only lasts for like one second: then the DM just makes that plot.

Quertus

2018-03-25, 07:54 PM

So here, for this example, you seem to be talking about a Player Controlled Game where the DM just does what the Players want. If the DM agrees and rolls over it's fine, but otherwise you get a very forced game play(and the players railroading the DM).

Of course good players and even average players don't want control of the game: They don't want to be side table DMs making and creating and controlling the world. They want to play a character IN the world.

So this type of game only comes from the bad players. And it's bad enough when the players know all the game world plot details, and then have to be silly and pretend thier characters don't know any of it....but it just becomes a non-game when the players just start to ''give their characters stuff''

But maybe your talking about a more normal game....but that has the DM in control of the plot, so it does not fit. In the normal game, the Dm makes everything, so the players can't ''just say and then'' there is a Orb of Dragon Slaying by the tree. The players can't ''say'' anything...they can ask and hope for and wish for: but it's still 100% up to the DM if something exists or not, even a plot.

And even if the players surprise the bad DM with the wacky idea of something like ''make friends with the dragon'', it only lasts for like one second: then the DM just makes that plot.

Good and even average posters on forums don't want to create threads. They don't want to be side table moderators, creating and writing code. They want to make posts IN threads.

So the type of forum where posters create threads only comes from bad posters. In a normal forum, the posters say, gee, we'd like to talk about X, and the moderator creates that thread.

What I just wrote makes, I hope, approximately the same amount of nonsense as your post.

You have this strange juxtaposition of creating a plot and creating content, for one. Those are two distinct things, dagnabbit! The GM creates the content, the players can, in a sandbox, turn said content into a plot. Just like the chef at a buffet cooks the food, and the diners turn it into a meal. Just like nature grew the trees, and then humans used them to build a log cabin.

Nature never makes a cabin, buffet cooks don't prescribe meals, and sandbox GMs need never create a plot.

EDIT: "buffet" is not a meaningless word. It means that the chef has abdicated all responsibility for turning the food into a meal to the diners (and that they can eat as much as they'd like). "Sandbox", similarly, means that the GM has abdicated all responsibility for turning their content into a plot to the players.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-25, 08:09 PM

[color="blue"]

You have this strange juxtaposition of creating a plot and creating content, for one. Those are two distinct things, dagnabbit! The GM creates the content, the players can, in a sandbox, turn said content into a plot.

Right, it's the adventure bit. The whole point of the adventure is that it has a narrow focus: it's just about X. So, in addition to the setting, the DM only needs to make things for the adventure.

But the ''other'' way is the DM just randomly makes hundreds of things...somehow...and the players know all about them..somehow...and can pick from them. And it's a bit silly and odd.

But, see, the game has to have some sort of focus....and that is the adventure.

And in any case, the players are not ever ''making a plot''. At the best, they are making a plot hook for the DM to make. The DM is the one must always make the plot.

Quertus

2018-03-25, 09:47 PM

Right, it's the adventure bit. The whole point of the adventure is that it has a narrow focus: it's just about X. So, in addition to the setting, the DM only needs to make things for the adventure.

But the ''other'' way is the DM just randomly makes hundreds of things...somehow...and the players know all about them..somehow...and can pick from them. And it's a bit silly and odd.

But, see, the game has to have some sort of focus....and that is the adventure.

And in any case, the players are not ever ''making a plot''. At the best, they are making a plot hook for the DM to make. The DM is the one must always make the plot.

The whole point of ordering a meal is that it narrows the focus. But the buffet cook makes dozens of things, somehow, and the diners know about them, somehow, and can pick from them. And it's a bit odd and silly. But, see, the food has to have some focus, and that's the meal. /blue

No, the GM need never make a plot. That is not a requirement for an RPG. Just provide the players enough of the right kind of tools, and good sandbox players will happily create plenty of plots. Just like good buffet diners will make meals, and good builders can make houses out of wood.

One of the points of the sandbox label is that the players are picking what the focus is. To continue the buffet analogy, a linear (branching) game is like ordering a meal off of a menu. A linear game is like your mom telling you what's for dinner.

Florian

2018-03-26, 12:54 AM

Perhaps because it's a very peculiar and not that widespread way of looking at RPGs, which for many gamers really has very little resemblance to how they actually do and experience gaming.

That might be because a lot of gamers try to avoid critical examination of their hobby and how they conduct it. Think will get a bit clearer when looking at other mediums we nowadays use to conduct our hobby, mainly active/passive only variants (active: Skype, passive: PbP).

The MMO example is a good one, as those games are designed in such a way that they can intentionally be used as something other than a game (chat platform, toy to pass time, so on).

In the same vain, a lot of activities are associated with playing an TTRPG, but not really a part of it, just some activities that mesh well. For example, I don't like playing online because I miss the social aspects of it. (Maybe more later, gotta go)

Mordaedil

2018-03-26, 01:39 AM

As I have said many times, I'm not a video game person.

Except what you say does not make sense. Every video game has very clear limits. You can't go past that river or whatever at the edge of the map. NPC in a game can only say a couple words and they can not interact with a player character in any real sense.

All you display here is your clear ignorance, really. We've made games decades ago that have no limits like this. Something like Daggerfall meets Minecraft would be literally endless and have no "river you can't cross" or an edge to a map. The only actual limit is the size of your harddrive, but that is the same as limit to graph paper.

Pleh

2018-03-26, 04:43 AM

All you display here is your clear ignorance, really. We've made games decades ago that have no limits like this. Something like Daggerfall meets Minecraft would be literally endless and have no "river you can't cross" or an edge to a map. The only actual limit is the size of your harddrive, but that is the same as limit to graph paper.

I agree. Procedurally generated games remove the need for manually crafted maps (which will always have limits as an inifinite map needs infinite time to make). Let the computer do the map generation so that it *can* continue to generate the map infinitely on an as-needed basis. It's not perfect, as procedural generation can create some nonsensical structures occasionally, but I feel like most MC fans embrace the crazy structures (floating blocks of dirt) like how D&D fans accept crazy RAW physics (drowning to save yourself from dying).

Mordaedil

2018-03-26, 04:49 AM

Heck, if you want to play something that does this right now, you can play Dwarf Fortress Adventure mode. It's not really anything like D&D, but I've read stories that really hammer home how limitless it is (you can ensalves an entire village of elves and have them fight eachother for your own amusement and beat them up with their own severed limbs, if that's your jam and rob their stores and take their food and weapons and clothes).

There ain't no limit, because it generates the entire world and writes an entire history of the world, including when heroes rise, defeat legendary monsters and die and how they died and lived.

Lorsa

2018-03-26, 06:06 AM

The second big problem is that without a baseline normal, you can't say any game is different. Something can only be different, when compared to something else. And very often that something else needs to be the normal baseline.

Both men and women are "normal human beings", yet they are clearly different.

There are plenty of ways to differentiate between things without one of them being a "baseline normal". I mean, just imagine if 50% of all chairs where white and 50% where black. Then there'd be no "normal" color, yet we could clearly tell them apart by one being white and the other black.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-26, 06:49 AM

No, the GM need never make a plot. That is not a requirement for an RPG. Just provide the players enough of the right kind of tools, and good sandbox players will happily create plenty of plots. Just like good buffet diners will make meals, and good builders can make houses out of wood.

As I have said, it's the Adventure that needs the plot, not the TRPG.

One of the points of the sandbox label is that the players are picking what the focus is. To continue the buffet analogy, a linear (branching) game is like ordering a meal off of a menu. A linear game is like your mom telling you what's for dinner.

Yes, the DM can sit back and wait for the players to pick a plot or even come up with a plot hook...BUT...it is still the DM that is the one making the plot.

And how does your food example work for Adults? Where no one can tell you what to eat?

All you display here is your clear ignorance, really. We've made games decades ago that have no limits like this.

I sure see it in just about every RPG-like video game. Maybe you don't see it as your a fan?

There ain't no limit, because it generates the entire world and writes an entire history of the world, including when heroes rise, defeat legendary monsters and die and how they died and lived.

But there IS a limit: You can only do what the game is programed to do.

Both men and women are "normal human beings", yet they are clearly different.

Except ''humans'' are the same, no matter what.

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-26, 06:53 AM

That might be because a lot of gamers try to avoid critical examination of their hobby and how they conduct it. Think will get a bit clearer when looking at other mediums we nowadays use to conduct our hobby, mainly active/passive only variants (active: Skype, passive: PbP).

The MMO example is a good one, as those games are designed in such a way that they can intentionally be used as something other than a game (chat platform, toy to pass time, so on).

Most gamers have come to avoid "critical examination" of the hobby and how they conduct it because so much of that "examination" has been so horribly wrong, toxically divisive, conducted with a blatant personal agenda, and/or shoved in everyone's face as The Truth And The Light. See, The Forge, for a well-known and sad example. Or because it attempts to force TTRPGs to fit a model created for something else (see, most attempts to bring in video game design theory, sociology and psychology, etc).

But that very division of "game" vs "toy" is one that most gamers aren't going to find very reflective of their actual motivations or activity -- and I consider them the best source on what they're actually thinking, feeling, and doing.

Mordaedil

2018-03-26, 07:08 AM

I sure see it in just about every RPG-like video game. Maybe you don't see it as your a fan?

But there IS a limit: You can only do what the game is programed to do.
I'm a historian, I'm not very fond of where video games are going, but that's because I feel like they are intentionally limiting themselves.

Are you familiar with the concept of "modding"? A few video games release with the tools that were used to create them, and allow the players to create their own creations within the games, extending assets, building new mechanics, adding plotlines and even restructuring the entire game to become their own game. Basically, the power of creation and imagination filling the gaps of creativity where otherwise you had only the limit of what its original creator limited you before.

That is the power of computers right now. The power to share creation between eachother and expand upon it infintely. You are essentially looking at the painting of a master painter and telling him "but can you draw anything you like?" and then presenting your own scribbled together comic that you drew with crayons.

I'm not dismissing the power of the imagination here, but you are certainly insulting the craft of creative endevours.

Quertus

2018-03-26, 08:13 AM

As I have said, it's the Adventure that needs the plot, not the TRPG.

Yes, the DM can sit back and wait for the players to pick a plot or even come up with a plot hook...BUT...it is still the DM that is the one making the plot.

And how does your food example work for Adults? Where no one can tell you what to eat?

When you go to a buffet, the chef does not inform you that, today, you will eat two steaks, three scoops of Mac & cheese, two scoops of broccoli, one bagel, one banana, and a slice of Apple pie. That expectation is just as ridiculous - and the same kind of ridiculous - as expecting the GM to touch the plot in a pure sandbox.

When I decide to... eat the ghosts in a particular order in Pac-Man (the plot), the programmer doesn't then have to write the code to allow that. They have already written the ghosts and their behavior and the rules of the game. They don't need to do anything for me to try out my plot.

Similarly, if the GM has done a good job of world building, they need never touch the plot in a sandbox. They just provide the content, let the players decide what to do with it, and follow the rules from there on out.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-26, 09:01 AM

Most gamers have come to avoid "critical examination" of the hobby and how they conduct it because so much of that "examination" has been so horribly wrong, toxically divisive, conducted with a blatant personal agenda, and/or shoved in everyone's face as The Truth And The Light. See, The Forge, for a well-known and sad example. Or because it attempts to force TTRPGs to fit a model created for something else (see, most attempts to bring in video game design theory, sociology and psychology, etc).

This is a basic truth that sadly has to be constantly rediscovered.

And it's not just true for games--most "soft" (ie dealing with human psychology or behavior in any sort of way) science "theory" suffers from the same issues. With rigorous examination and proper testing you can weed out some of the biases, but anything dealing with living things (let alone human beings) is hard and not amenable to the same definitional rigor that you can get when dealing with inanimate constructs (like physics, chemistry, or other "hard" sciences). It often is best used as descriptive rather than prescriptive methods--categorize and give good names but don't insist on those categories having actual "real" meaning. They're just one of the many possible ways to slice the behavior into chunks for communication.

Gaming "theory" (as opposed to game theory, which is different) is at the alchemy stage of scientific development--people doing things based on fuzzy notions and mystical resemblances/internal biases. Sometimes you get good information out, but it's largely by accident and not generalizable very far at all.

Pleh

2018-03-26, 09:17 AM

But there IS a limit: You can only do what the game is programed to do.

Or you can mod the game.

Except ''humans'' are the same, no matter what.

And yet this fact in no way makes the terms, "male" or "female" meaningless. Hence the futility of your position.

Lorsa

2018-03-26, 09:41 AM

Except ''humans'' are the same, no matter what.

Just as "TRPGs" are the same, no matter what, and yet we can still differentiate them between 'linear' and 'sandbox'.

Scripten

2018-03-26, 09:41 AM

As a software engineer and hobbyist game designer, the discussion of the capabilities of video games in this thread is... disturbing. Not that I expect anything else from these kinds of threads.

The limitations that DU is whining about in video games are literally brought about by the fact that "plots" in video games are pre-designed. As in, the game designer (DM) comes up with an Adventure for players to play through, and thus has to constrain actions (Railroad) such that the players cannot act outside of the expected parameters. All of the reasons that DU is attacking video games are brought about by the tactics he is claiming are essential to TTRPGs. Those tactics are being used to attack sandboxes in a flurry of ignorance and arrogance, which is both hilarious and sad at once.

If DU is able to foretell every single possible action a player could perform in any situation, perhaps he would be best suited to designing a video game, considering that he would be solving the problems he has with the medium. (Problems, may I add, which have not yet been solved by the largest media industry in the world.)

Frozen_Feet

2018-03-26, 11:38 AM

@Max_Killjoy & PhoenixPhyre:

1) If you want to beat the undead horse that is GNS, just go read D&D with Pornstars where Zak S. is doing exactly that for you.

2) "We don't talk about theory because there was once a bad theory" is one of, if not the least fruitfull attitudes possible to take in the face of a bad theory, and in the long term, just as harmfull as any bad theory.

3) laying the success of and damage done by said bad theories at the feet of critical examination, rather than lack of it, is pretty damn eye-roll-worthy.

4) the idea that sociology, psychology, videogame design etc. have no relevant things to say about tabletop games is laughable and in the long term ignoring them can only do the hobby harm. If you further use their flaws as excuse for "we don't talk about theory", you only ensure that no usefull tabletop specific theory will ever arise.

5) regardless, I don't think the occasional bad theory burning a bunch of hobbyists is the prime reason for lack of critical examination of the hobby. It can be shown that people on average don't think all that deeply of their hobbies, regardless of the specifics, because the function of their hobbies is leisure and breaktime from the demands and difficulties of their actual day jobs. Saying GNS is the motive for "most" players to avoid theory is incredible when far more mundane reasons exists.

---

@Scripten: like said: videogames got their bad habits from the tabletop rather than the other way around. Videogame plots are linear railroads because videogames absorbed the same thought that already existed in tabletop games: that for a story to be good, it has to emulate books and movies which were their inspiration.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-26, 11:46 AM

@Max_Killjoy & PhoenixPhyre:

1) If you want to beat the undead horse that is GNS, just go read D&D with Pornstars where Zak S. is doing exactly that for you.

2) "We don't talk about theory because there was once a bad theory" is one of, if not the least fruitfull attitudes possible to take in the face of a bad theory, and in the long term, just as harmfull as any bad theory.

3) laying the success of and damage done by said bad theories at the feet of critical examination, rather than lack of it, is pretty damn eye-roll-worthy.

4) the idea that sociology, psychology, videogame design etc. have no relevant things to say about tabletop games is laughable and in the long term ignoring them can only do the hobby harm. If you further use their flaws as excuse for "we don't talk about theory", you only ensure that no usefull tabletop specific theory will ever arise.

5) regardless, I don't think the occasional bad theory burning a bunch of hobbyists is the prime reason for lack of critical examination of the hobby. It can be shown that people on average don't think all that deeply of their hobbies, regardless of the specifics, because the function of their hobbies is leisure and breaktime from the demands and difficulties of their actual day jobs. Saying GNS is the motive for "most" players to avoid theory is incredible when far more mundane reasons exists.

I've never actually read any of GNS theory. Mine was a more general point about fetishizing "theory" that actually isn't tested (or can't be tested due to the nature of the subject area). And that's what all the gaming theory I have read (and the psychological, sociological, etc theory). It certainly has its uses, but in the absence of good evidence it's often worse than useless. As a note, I have the exact same problem with M-theory (what is popularly called string theory). It's untestable mathematical fantasy.

Let me turn it around. What's a good game (either video or TT) that was produced based on gaming theory? What use of it does it actually make? The proof is in the pudding--if this theory produces nothing and explains/predicts nothing, then it's useless (or worse than useless if it impedes others). If you claim that it's so important that ignoring it will harm the hobby, show your work. What products couldn't have been made without it? What specific aspects were used, and how?

kyoryu

2018-03-26, 12:08 PM

1) If you want to beat the undead horse that is GNS, just go read D&D with Pornstars where Zak S. is doing exactly that for you.

Eh, it shows up enough that "undead" is probably the right term. And it really should be called out as not useful at best, and probably harmful when people attempt to cite it as a "true" thing.

2) "We don't talk about theory because there was once a bad theory" is one of, if not the least fruitfull attitudes possible to take in the face of a bad theory, and in the long term, just as harmfull as any bad theory.

Agreed 100%.

3) laying the success of and damage done by said bad theories at the feet of critical examination, rather than lack of it, is pretty damn eye-roll-worthy.

Not sure what you're saying here. If game design is being negatively impacted by said theories, then, yeah, that theory should get the blame. The bigger point is that confirmation bias exists, and people love theories which support their pet interests, and people love things that sound academic. A higher level of critical thinking regarding RPG theory is probably a good idea, starting with the idea that the statements made by such theory should match with the real world.

4) the idea that sociology, psychology, videogame design etc. have no relevant things to say about tabletop games is laughable and in the long term ignoring them can only do the hobby harm. If you further use their flaws as excuse for "we don't talk about theory", you only ensure that no usefull tabletop specific theory will ever arise.

Of course. But especially with video game design, care should be taken to understand the differences between video games and tabletop games.

Ignoring lessons from other fields is pretty ignorant. But so is applying them without thought or examination.

5) regardless, I don't think the occasional bad theory burning a bunch of hobbyists is the prime reason for lack of critical examination of the hobby. It can be shown that people on average don't think all that deeply of their hobbies, regardless of the specifics, because the function of their hobbies is leisure and breaktime from the demands and difficulties of their actual day jobs. Saying GNS is the motive for "most" players to avoid theory is incredible when far more mundane reasons exists.

It's hard to call GNS the "occasional bad theory" given that it is *still* the prime "theory" being referenced, even when the people doing so often have little idea of what the theory actually says. But, regardless, I agree that bad theory shouldn't be an argument that theory is bad, but rather a call for *better* theory. And a good place to start with that is probably "actually corresponds to observable behavior". In other words, if your theory can't explain how D&D, Fate, and PbtA games are all popular, it's probably a weak theory. If it can't explain how D&D 3, 4, and 5 all have their adherents, it's still a weak theory.

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-26, 12:11 PM

This is a basic truth that sadly has to be constantly rediscovered.

And it's not just true for games--most "soft" (ie dealing with human psychology or behavior in any sort of way) science "theory" suffers from the same issues. With rigorous examination and proper testing you can weed out some of the biases, but anything dealing with living things (let alone human beings) is hard and not amenable to the same definitional rigor that you can get when dealing with inanimate constructs (like physics, chemistry, or other "hard" sciences). It often is best used as descriptive rather than prescriptive methods--categorize and give good names but don't insist on those categories having actual "real" meaning. They're just one of the many possible ways to slice the behavior into chunks for communication.

Gaming "theory" (as opposed to game theory, which is different) is at the alchemy stage of scientific development--people doing things based on fuzzy notions and mystical resemblances/internal biases. Sometimes you get good information out, but it's largely by accident and not generalizable very far at all.

The error of taking descriptive as prescriptive comes up a lot. For example, see how often descriptive analysis of existing fiction is taken as prescriptive declaration of how fiction must be written. The Hero's Journey, the Hollywood script formula, etc, all were originally intended to find and understand common elements in fiction, but were quickly taken up as "this is how you must write if you want to write something good".

There's the error of mistaking the personal and subjective for the objective -- "I've only ever played D&D with a GM using modules, but I feel utterly confident telling people what's wrong with their favorite system or style."

The universality error -- "this is how we've found the people we've studied think and feel, therefore all people think and feel this way".

The convert's error -- "I used to be sad, then I made a change, now I'm happy... therefore everyone who hasn't made the same change I did must be making the same mistakes I was making, and must be sad".

Scripten

2018-03-26, 12:13 PM

@Scripten: like said: videogames got their bad habits from the tabletop rather than the other way around. Videogame plots are linear railroads because videogames absorbed the same thought that already existed in tabletop games: that for a story to be good, it has to emulate books and movies which were their inspiration.

I wouldn't say it's the only reason, but yeah, you make a good point. The "problems" with linear (both in the true linear and branching sense) videogames came about because developers wanted to tell a story. They had a plot written out and wanted it to be told. That's actually okay, IMO. There are some very good stories that have been told by linear games. When the game mechanics support those stories and their motifs, it's even better.

However, there are plenty of games sold on the idea of "doing everything". They always fall short because there's no way to preemptively cover every permutation of every players' potential actions even in a moderately constrained system. Until we have software that can match the ingenuity and inventiveness of the human mind, these systems will still nevertheless fall short of a human GM in a TTRPG.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-26, 12:20 PM

1) The error of taking descriptive as prescriptive comes up a lot. For example, see how often descriptive analysis of existing fiction is taken as prescriptive declaration of how fiction must be written. The Hero's Journey, the Hollywood script formula, etc, all were originally intended to find and understand common elements in fiction, but were quickly taken up as "this is how you must write if you want to write something good".

2) There's the error of mistaking the personal and subjective for the objective -- "I've only ever played D&D with a GM using modules, but I feel utterly confident telling people what's wrong with their favorite system or style."

3) The universality error -- "this is how we've found the people we've studied think and feel, therefore all people think and feel this way".

4) The convert's error -- "I used to be sad, then I made a change, now I'm happy... therefore everyone who hasn't made the same change I did must be making the same mistakes I was making, and must be sad".

1, 2, and 4: agreed.

3 is even worse than that though--"this is how people we've studied (under these specific, often highly artificial circumstances, with that specific set of prompts) behaved (once we threw out all the parts that didn't fit). Therefore, according to our (a priori and untestable) models that link behavior and thought, this is how they felt. From that we conclude that everyone thinks that way."

There's a big problem in confusing the directly measured response to a survey/test instrument with the construct you're testing. Physically, what your instruments read is usually a voltage. Based on a theory of the instrument, we can map that voltage onto a physical stimulus. Because we can test that same instrument on a huge range of physical stimuli, we can figure out how well it actually measures what we think it measures (or what we want it to measure). There are still lots of issues that come up because it's measuring a proxy to the real variable, and the proxy and the real variable aren't exactly correlated under all circumstances.

In softer sciences it's frequently difficult to even validate the instruments. Everybody reacts differently enough that you can only get much broader response curves and much less granular data. And the theory that connects the observed response to the stimulus is often quite flimsy itself. Not to mention that there's a strong observer effect with people--the fact that they're being tested makes them respond differently (and sometimes quite radically so). So taking that data and extrapolating it to tell you very much about the actual people is quite hard and fraught with error. Especially since most psych studies are done on very small groups (10-20 max), never replicated, and often done on particularly odd sub-populations (ie psych students at college).

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-26, 01:01 PM

1, 2, and 4: agreed.

3 is even worse than that though--"this is how people we've studied (under these specific, often highly artificial circumstances, with that specific set of prompts) behaved (once we threw out all the parts that didn't fit). Therefore, according to our (a priori and untestable) models that link behavior and thought, this is how they felt. From that we conclude that everyone thinks that way."

There's a big problem in confusing the directly measured response to a survey/test instrument with the construct you're testing. Physically, what your instruments read is usually a voltage. Based on a theory of the instrument, we can map that voltage onto a physical stimulus. Because we can test that same instrument on a huge range of physical stimuli, we can figure out how well it actually measures what we think it measures (or what we want it to measure). There are still lots of issues that come up because it's measuring a proxy to the real variable, and the proxy and the real variable aren't exactly correlated under all circumstances.

In softer sciences it's frequently difficult to even validate the instruments. Everybody reacts differently enough that you can only get much broader response curves and much less granular data. And the theory that connects the observed response to the stimulus is often quite flimsy itself. Not to mention that there's a strong observer effect with people--the fact that they're being tested makes them respond differently (and sometimes quite radically so). So taking that data and extrapolating it to tell you very much about the actual people is quite hard and fraught with error. Especially since most psych studies are done on very small groups (10-20 max), never replicated, and often done on particularly odd sub-populations (ie psych students at college).

Sounds like we're getting into this, in part -- https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/the-weird-evolution-of-human-psychology/ -- the subjects of psychology studies tend to be college students from western industrial societies, who know they are part of a study, and who are often themselves psych students. This problem appears to be broadly present to varying degrees across the social sciences.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-26, 01:25 PM

Sounds like we're getting into this, in part -- https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/the-weird-evolution-of-human-psychology/ -- the subjects of psychology studies tend to be college students from western industrial societies, who know they are part of a study, and who are often themselves psych students. This problem appears to be broadly present to varying degrees across the social sciences.

Right. Because experiments with humans as subjects are hard. Especially psych-type/behavioral studies. So we use easy-to-acquire subjects (psych students who have to do a certain number of studies per semester for a grade) and ask them artificial questions.

There's a huge problem in many social studies that the studies don't replicate--other groups doing the same thing get very different results. There are also issues with low effect sizes--since all most people care about is "statistical significance" they don't see that it's often so small an effect that it's not noticeable. That is, they may be true but they don't mean very much.

kyoryu

2018-03-26, 01:26 PM

3 is even worse than that though--"this is how people we've studied (under these specific, often highly artificial circumstances, with that specific set of prompts) behaved (once we threw out all the parts that didn't fit). Therefore, according to our (a priori and untestable) models that link behavior and thought, this is how they felt. From that we conclude that everyone thinks that way."

This is, specifically, my issue with the "Bartle Types". They came from examining the userbase of a single, specific MUD that had a fairly unique set of rules. And now they're used as universal player types.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-26, 01:27 PM

This is, specifically, my issue with the "Bartle Types". They came from examining the userbase of a single, specific MUD that had a fairly unique set of rules. And now they're used as universal player types.

Yeah. It's common to generalize from very small samples and forget all the parts that made that thing unique. It's like trying to discuss the behavior of all TTRPG tables based on a survey of GiTP regulars. We're not only not a random sample, we're a highly biased sample with a lot of idiosyncrasies.

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-26, 01:33 PM

Right. Because experiments with humans as subjects are <em>hard</em>. Especially psych-type/behavioral studies. So we use easy-to-acquire subjects (psych students who have to do a certain number of studies per semester for a grade) and ask them artificial questions.

There's a huge problem in many social studies that the studies don't replicate--other groups doing the same thing get very different results. There are also issues with low effect sizes--since all most people care about is "statistical significance" they don't see that it's often so small an effect that it's not noticeable. That is, they may be true but they don't mean very much.

And then those "statistically significant" effects (from studying a small number of a very particular group of people) suddenly become "universal truths if the human experience" as they make it into the pop-science media.

This is, specifically, my issue with the "Bartle Types". They came from examining the userbase of a single, specific MUD that had a fairly unique set of rules. And now they're used as universal player types.

Related -- the way American business culture treats the Myers-Briggs types:

https://thoughtcatalog.com/daniel-hayes/2015/07/myers-briggs-nonsense
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-myers-briggs-personality-test-is-pretty-much-meaningless-9359770

Yeah. It's common to generalize from very small samples and forget all the parts that made that thing unique. It's like trying to discuss the behavior of all TTRPG tables based on a survey of GiTP regulars. We're not only not a random sample, we're a highly biased sample with a lot of idiosyncrasies.

Example -- "Playgrounders' Fallacy".

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-26, 02:29 PM

And then those "statistically significant" effects (from studying a small number of a very particular group of people) suddenly become "universal truths if the human experience" as they make it into the pop-science media.

A large part of that is the fault of the science popularizers/science media. They're pretty much uniformly crap. Even if the actual paper has appropriate qualifiers and sober language, those get dropped right off when it goes to the PR office to be turned into a press release and then gets further mutated when it hits the press. It's a game of telephone with the noise level turned up to 11.

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-26, 03:56 PM

The last line seems appropriate...

http://www.writingexcuses.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/VerbingWeirdsLanguage.jpg

kyoryu

2018-03-26, 04:08 PM

Related -- the way American business culture treats the Myers-Briggs types:

https://thoughtcatalog.com/daniel-hayes/2015/07/myers-briggs-nonsense
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-myers-briggs-personality-test-is-pretty-much-meaningless-9359770

My stepfather was a psychologist and did management consulting with hires, etc.

He always said that Myers-Briggs told you more about how the person viewed themselves than how they actually would behave.

Frozen_Feet

2018-03-26, 04:09 PM

I've never actually read any of GNS theory.

That point was more directed at Max, as he's the one who likes to rant about it. In any case, I won't dwell on GNS or games made based on it, as Zak S. happens to already be doing that and you can just go read his blog.

Mine was a more general point about fetishizing "theory" that actually isn't tested (or can't be tested due to the nature of the subject area).

I don't disagree. My point was that putting "critical examination" in scare quotes and equating it to such fetishizing is bad rhetoric and not helpfull. Because only through critical examination will those theories ever get tested.

And that's what all the gaming theory I have read (and the psychological, sociological, etc theory). It certainly has its uses, but in the absence of good evidence it's often worse than useless. As a note, I have the exact same problem with M-theory (what is popularly called string theory). It's untestable mathematical fantasy.

There's lots of empirically tested psychological and sociological theories as pertain to small group behaviour, used in the fields of public education and military. Just because they're not on the level of "hard science" doesn't make them useless. If you want to argue the point, feel free to look up public statistics of state of Finland and how they compare to the resr of the world.

Let me turn it around. What's a good game (either video or TT) that was produced based on gaming theory? What use of it does it actually make? The proof is in the pudding--if this theory produces nothing and explains/predicts nothing, then it's useless (or worse than useless if it impedes others). If you claim that it's so important that ignoring it will harm the hobby, show your work. What products couldn't have been made without it? What specific aspects were used, and how?

Since I was talking of the hobby and not just game design, let me start with that:

Locally, in Finland, there is another hobby that is typically done in small groups, in weekly gatherings, where one person is the chief organizer and social authority.

This hobby applies a pedagogic method and integrates basic psychology and sociology (leadership, motivation, conflict resolution etc.) in its syllabus. It also organizes meetings between group leaders and offers education as well as updates to the pedagogic method frequently.

This hobby is called Scouting and it has at least an order of magnitude more hobbyists locally than tabletop games.

There's no reason why the tabletop community couldn't utilize the same schema to offer support and help to game masters, other than ignorance or unwilligness to admit that small group hobbies in fact work alike and RPGs are not a special snowflake.

Notably, tabletop community already indirectly benefits from Scouts, because Scouts hold organized game nights every once in a while. A lot of people got introduced to tabletop games this way, so theres no reason to think the Scout model for activity couldn't work.

In Finland tabletop circles, people already acknowledged the abysmal level of organization as well as the lack of any actual teaching material for new hobbyists, which culminated in two games aimed at children and beginners, Astraterra and Myrskyn Sankarit/Heroes of the Tempest. A new roleplaying association (Suomen Roolipeliseura) which now holds those meetings for GMs. And I'm personally involved with a smaller club which directly works with Scouts, schools etc. associations to bring gaming to kids and teens.

So that's why you pay attention to psychology and sociology. I cannot send you a copy of my Scout Master's handbook, but if you can get your hands on one, it might make an interesting point lf discussion.

Now back to games. Let me list a few: Icewind Dale 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Incursion roguelike, dnd, Nethack, ADOM.

These are all based on a game design theory called Dungeons & Dragons. As in: they either are or started as direct rules emulations of a tabletop game. Notably, the oldest of these, dnd, was made when D&D had just become a thing, and is possibly the game that introduced bosses to videogame design.

All of these essentially serve as codification of a specific game master's, or a game master group's, vision of how to run the game under a version of D&D rules, that is constant and can be tested by statistically significant numbers of people. Both their commercial success, critical reception and fan reception test the durability and popularity of D&D game design principles, from use of classes and experience points to accumulation of loot to random generation of terrain to what kind of characters and character interactions are memorable. It would be absurd to say observations based on them have no relevance to the tabletop games they are trying their hardest to emulate!

---

Eh, it shows up enough that "undead" is probably the right term. And it really should be called out as not useful at best, and probably harmful when people attempt to cite it as a "true" thing.

Again, go read Zak S. This discussion is already going on.

Not sure what you're saying here. If game design is being negatively impacted by said theories, then, yeah, that theory should get the blame. The bigger point is that confirmation bias exists, and people love theories which support their pet interests, and people love things that sound academic. A higher level of critical thinking regarding RPG theory is probably a good idea, starting with the idea that the statements made by such theory should match with the real world.

What I'm saying is simply that bad theories cement themselves and become popular due to lack of critical thinking in the hobby. The bad theory might itself be result of (flawed) critical thinking, but only if critical examination continues will we ever get better theories. As I wrote above to PhoenixPhyre, putting "critical examination" in scare quotes doesn't help.

This is just clarification, since we obviously don't disagree.

kyoryu

2018-03-26, 04:25 PM

Again, go read Zak S. This discussion is already going on.

I'm fully aware of Zak S.

What I'm saying is simply that bad theories cement themselves and become popular due to lack of critical thinking in the hobby. The bad theory might itself be result of (flawed) critical thinking, but only if critical examination continues will we ever get better theories. As I wrote above to PhoenixPhyre, putting "critical examination" in scare quotes doesn't help.

This is just clarification, since we obviously don't disagree.

Good clarification. We are pretty clearly on the same page.

Yeah, if your game theory says "the most popular game is just bad in all ways", then your game theory is incorrect and should be reconsidered. Unfortunately, I think that useful game theory will end up a lot like "well, figure out who you're making your game for, understand your goals, and try not to make decisions that contradict your stated goals, and test the product against real people. Oh, and here's some things we've done and tried that may or may not be useful goalposts."

Theory like that tends to be useful, but isn't really sexy enough to get mindshare and become popular.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-26, 04:43 PM

I'm fully aware of Zak S.

Good clarification. We are pretty clearly on the same page.

Yeah, if your game theory says "the most popular game is just bad in all ways", then your game theory is incorrect and should be reconsidered. Unfortunately, I think that useful game theory will end up a lot like "well, figure out who you're making your game for, understand your goals, and try not to make decisions that contradict your stated goals, and test the product against real people. Oh, and here's some things we've done and tried that may or may not be useful goalposts."

Theory like that tends to be useful, but isn't really sexy enough to get mindshare and become popular.

That kind of theory I can get behind. But that's too conventional to get noticed. Same way with pedagogic theory--you always have to come up with something new to justify that salary.

I'm not against theory. I do it all the time. I'm against trusting the words of credentialed "experts" just because they attach the words "studies show that..." to things or use fancy terms.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-26, 05:58 PM

Similarly, if the GM has done a good job of world building, they need never touch the plot in a sandbox. They just provide the content, let the players decide what to do with it, and follow the rules from there on out.

Your more saying that once the DM writes the Adventure, they don't need to write another until it's done?

Your plotless world does not make sense.

Like, ok, the DM makes the vague ''bandits live in the bandit hills'' as part of the world creation...but the DM does not create a whole bandit adventure as they don't ''have the time'' and don't know if it's needed.

So they players, with no plot or story and for utterly no reason just randomly say ''our characters what to go kill the bandits in the bandit hills".

Ok, because it's a sandbox, the DM just sits there and does nothing. And, as the DM has not made them, the bandits don't exist. So the players just have their characters randomly wander around the bandit hills. Then, at some random point on a whim, the DM will just say ''ok, you guys found the bandits''. Then there is some mindless combat...and the game, such as it is, is over.

Milo v3

2018-03-26, 06:23 PM

Your more saying that once the DM writes the Adventure, they don't need to write another until it's done?
Nope

Like, ok, the DM makes the vague ''bandits live in the bandit hills'' as part of the world creation...but the DM does not create a whole bandit adventure as they don't ''have the time'' and don't know if it's needed.
They don't create a bandit adventure because they don't create an adventures themselves. They create the bandits, the create the hills, they could put in a large amount of detail about the bandits goals/activities/habits/personalities or they can write minimally, either is valid depending on the DMs preferences.

So they players, with no plot or story and for utterly no reason just randomly say ''our characters what to go kill the bandits in the bandit hills".
That's very unlikely, but possible. 99% of the time, the player characters act in a manner the players feel makes sense for their characters personality, available information, and motivations.

Ok, because it's a sandbox, the DM just sits there and does nothing.
Nope. DMs are very busy if they're trying to run a sandbox game in my experience.

And, as the DM has not made them, the bandits don't exist
Oranges eat goldfish and swim through the clouds. (I too can say things no one else said)

So the players just have their characters randomly wander around the bandit hills.
Nope.

Then, at some random point on a whim, the DM will just say ''ok, you guys found the bandits''.
Nope.

Then there is some mindless combat...and the game, such as it is, is over.
Possible, any game with combat can theoretically have mindless combat. I've endevoured to never have it, though I have had some 2 encounters fail before. Not sure why the game would end after the combat suddenly.

ImNotTrevor

2018-03-26, 06:34 PM

Nope

They don't create a bandit adventure because they don't create an adventures themselves. They create the bandits, the create the hills, they could put in a large amount of detail about the bandits goals/activities/habits/personalities or they can write minimally, either is valid depending on the DMs preferences.

That's very unlikely, but possible. 99% of the time, the player characters act in a manner the players feel makes sense for their characters personality, available information, and motivations.

Nope. DMs are very busy if they're trying to run a sandbox game in my experience.

Oranges eat goldfish and swim through the clouds. (I too can say things no one else said)

Nope.

Nope.

Possible, any game with combat can theoretically have mindless combat. I've endevoured to never have it, though I have had some 2 encounters fail before. Not sure why the game would end after the combat suddenly.

DU evidently believes that only one thing can exist/be going on at a time.

We see this in reality, where no two major events have ever both been happening at the same time.
Oh wait... no, that's NONSENSE.

While I don't condone feeding trolls, I do appreciate this functioning as a Containment Thread.

Quertus

2018-03-26, 07:00 PM

In other words, if your theory can't explain how D&D, Fate, and PbtA games are all popular, it's probably a weak theory. If it can't explain how D&D 3, 4, and 5 all have their adherents, it's still a weak theory.

Hey, now, 2e's got some love on these forums, too! I'm not the only poster who calls it their favorite.

often done on particularly odd sub-populations (ie psych students at college).

the subjects of psychology studies tend to be college students from western industrial societies, who know they are part of a study, and who are often themselves psych students. This problem appears to be broadly present to varying degrees across the social sciences.

IMO, participation in scientific studies should be mandatory, and, as necessary, without the user's knowledge. Perhaps as part of the penal system, by using standard random people who know that they are being tested, criminals who know that they are being tested, and criminals who are ignorant of the test as comparison points.

This is, specifically, my issue with the "Bartle Types". They came from examining the userbase of a single, specific MUD that had a fairly unique set of rules. And now they're used as universal player types.

What's "Bartle Types"?

Yeah, if your game theory says "the most popular game is just bad in all ways", then your game theory is incorrect and should be reconsidered.

Actually... being "bad" is fairly synonymous with being popular according to many snooty aficionados in many circles. Further, there's a certain charm to something being bad (but still good enough and/or fixable), that tends to endear it.

So, don't discount a theory just because it calls something popular "bad", as it may well be completely correct!

Your more saying that once the DM writes the Adventure, they don't need to write another until it's done?

Your plotless world does not make sense.

Like, ok, the DM makes the vague ''bandits live in the bandit hills'' as part of the world creation...but the DM does not create a whole bandit adventure as they don't ''have the time'' and don't know if it's needed.

So they players, with no plot or story and for utterly no reason just randomly say ''our characters what to go kill the bandits in the bandit hills".

Ok, because it's a sandbox, the DM just sits there and does nothing. And, as the DM has not made them, the bandits don't exist. So the players just have their characters randomly wander around the bandit hills. Then, at some random point on a whim, the DM will just say ''ok, you guys found the bandits''. Then there is some mindless combat...and the game, such as it is, is over.

Doubtless, you are using words in your own unique way again, thereby obfuscating meaning and impeding efficient conversation. I shall endeavour, yet again, to penetrate this fog and shine some light upon the relevant bits.

So, the GM creates the bandits. Fine and dandy. Now what?

The linear GM wants to tell the story of the PCs killing the bandits. So he carefully maps out that the PCs will learn of the bandits, guard a caravan, fend off a bandit attack, and track the bandits back to Bandit Hill. The party will come across an abandoned wagon on their way into town (if the PCs happen to ask the townsfolk about it, the GM knows that the townsfolk will explain that their fluffy bunny caravan fought back against the bandits, and many in the caravan were killed). In the tavern, the party can hear rumors about the bandits. Etc etc etc. The linear adventure is not fault tolerant: in the PCs decide to use diplomacy on the bandits to convince them to go elsewhere, or the only party member with tracking dies in the initial fight with the bandits, the adventure has gone off the rails.

In a sandbox, the GM creates the bandits. The bandits will do whatever bandits do. And the party is free to act as above, join the bandits, kill the bandits and then become bandits themselves, attempt to enlist the bandits aid in the much more lucrative occupation of adventuring, ignore the bandits altogether, or whatever else they can think to do. The GM never creates the "kill the bandits" adventure, because he doesn't have to - that's the players' job to figure out the what and how regarding playing with the toys that the GM has provided.

EDIT: a sandbox GM doesn't wrote adventures, he writes content. Now, a good sandbox GM will write content that is good for writing adventures with. And content that is good for many different possible adventures - the Dragon that can only be slain by the seven shards of the Sword McGuffin is rarely found in a sandbox.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-26, 08:07 PM

EDIT: a sandbox GM doesn't wrote adventures, he writes content. Now, a good sandbox GM will write content that is good for writing adventures with. And content that is good for many different possible adventures - the Dragon that can only be slain by the seven shards of the Sword McGuffin is rarely found in a sandbox.

Again, and again and again, it just keeps being said that the so called sandbox is a game where the players can pick any wacky thing to do. But that is any normal TRPG.

So, other then the DM being a Jerk or an inexperienced Bad DM, what ''type'' of game has the DM make One Way Path to do something and Force the players to do it? But everyone seems to say there are ''lots'' of types a games like this?

Is sandbox just a code word for ''I as the DM won't be a jerk or act with inexperience"?

1337 b4k4

2018-03-26, 08:24 PM

Is sandbox just a code word for ''I as the DM won't be a jerk or act with inexperience"?

You have 30 pages of people explaining sandbox to you in various different ways, from direct explanations to analogies. You have citations from the early days of our hobby and you have the entirety of the internet at your disposal. If you don't get it by now, I'm not sure anything is going to work.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-26, 08:35 PM

You have 30 pages of people explaining sandbox to you in various different ways, from direct explanations to analogies. You have citations from the early days of our hobby and you have the entirety of the internet at your disposal. If you don't get it by now, I'm not sure anything is going to work.

I just have a random mess of a pile of random messes of random words.

IF it was a real thing, then someone could just type what it is....real things work like that.

Quertus

2018-03-26, 08:35 PM

Again, and again and again, it just keeps being said that the so called sandbox is a game where the players can pick any wacky thing to do. But that is any normal TRPG.

So, other then the DM being a Jerk or an inexperienced Bad DM, what ''type'' of game has the DM make One Way Path to do something and Force the players to do it? But everyone seems to say there are ''lots'' of types a games like this?

Is sandbox just a code word for ''I as the DM won't be a jerk or act with inexperience"?

I mean, if you take it that way, you'll at least be closer to understanding.

But, let's say that the players want to play through... Star Wars. Not just play in the universe, not just play as the main characters, but tell the exact same story.

Problem is, none of the players know the story.

This would be an example of a very Linear adventure idea. And one where the players should exhibit Participation, in allowing the GM to Railroad them onto the desired plot.

Then, for giggles, they watch the movie after playing through it. :smalltongue:

If, otoh, the players actually know the plot of Star Wars, it's just a Linear adventure.

Playing an Adventure Path, the module has very definite "you must do X to continue" states. This is another example of a Linear adventure structure that doesn't require a bad GM.

Choosing to follow one of several paths through the woods to a cabin is, going back to that example, Participation in a Linear adventure. Grabbing a map and compass and hitting several sights throughout the woods, and going to the cabin or not, would better parallel a sandbox.

In a Linear adventure, the GM picks the destination and path. The GM creates the plot. In a sandbox, the players do. The GM just creates the content.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-26, 08:56 PM

In a Linear adventure, the GM picks the destination and path. The GM creates the plot. In a sandbox, the players do. The GM just creates the content.

But your just saying, again, the DM that ''picks'' things....is somehow forcing the players to do only what they picked. And that is a jerk move.

And, as always, you are still stuck on the idea that a Plot is set in stone. Like that DM running that Star Wars game is just sitting there thinking I can't wait to force Bob to have his Luke character blow up the Death Star at the very last second! . And like if Bob should say ''ok, Luke decides to go to Hodge Station and pick up some power converters...", the DM will slam his fist down, grab the 'Luke' character sheet and say "No, Luke MUST go search for R2! THIS I COMMAND!"

Milo v3

2018-03-26, 10:23 PM

Darth Ultron's description of Linear Games: Horrible GMing via Railroad
Darth Ultron's description of Sandbox Games: Meaningless Randomness
Darth Ultron's description of a Normal Game: A game which is both linear and sandbox while not being either of the above definitions.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-26, 11:08 PM

Xuc Xac

2018-03-26, 11:08 PM

And, as always, you are still stuck on the idea that a Plot is set in stone.

You can write it on paper with a pencil or scribble a basic outline on a dry erase board if you want. It's still a linear plot if the DM writes it before playing.

Quertus

2018-03-26, 11:34 PM

But your just saying, again, the DM that ''picks'' things....is somehow forcing the players to do only what they picked. And that is a jerk move.

And, as always, you are still stuck on the idea that a Plot is set in stone. Like that DM running that Star Wars game is just sitting there thinking I can't wait to force Bob to have his Luke character blow up the Death Star at the very last second! . And like if Bob should say ''ok, Luke decides to go to Hodge Station and pick up some power converters...", the DM will slam his fist down, grab the 'Luke' character sheet and say "No, Luke MUST go search for R2! THIS I COMMAND!"

The plot of the Star Wars movies is set in stone. As are the plots of many modules. We describe those modules as Linear.

Playing with the Star Wars characters, but allowing them to go off script, would be more along the lines of a Sandbox.

And, yes, I'm horribly biased against linear games, unless the players have bought in (such as they generally do with a purchased module. I'm fine in that scenario with the GM is saying, "that isn't covered by the module"). EDIT: as such, if we ever get to the point where what I'm saying makes sense to you, we should sanity check it with someone who doesn't hate linear games with my burning passion.

Florian

2018-03-27, 02:45 AM

Yeah, if your game theory says "the most popular game is just bad in all ways", then your game theory is incorrect and should be reconsidered. Unfortunately, I think that useful game theory will end up a lot like "well, figure out who you're making your game for, understand your goals, and try not to make decisions that contradict your stated goals, and test the product against real people. Oh, and here's some things we've done and tried that may or may not be useful goalposts."

Theory like that tends to be useful, but isn't really sexy enough to get mindshare and become popular.

That's the main difference between academia and industry approach to theories. Academics are more or less forces to write and publish papers to "advance", Universities rely on the sheer amount of publications as part of that effing ranking systems. So flashy, controversial, all that.

The approach in the various industries is wildly different, more hands on and with a focus on the customer, as there're really good examples on what happens when you're wrong (see Crystal Coke).

One of the problems with Gaming Theory so far was that it was a biased approached to show something, because, I guess, a lot of the people behind it wanted to legitimate their own stance.

It´s like "Yes, you're right, you don't need a car stereo to drive a car, but people expect it to be part of the car driving experience and won't buy a car without one, or at least having a slot in the dashboard to insert one". Both statements are true: You don't need it, but you need it to sell the car.

D&D 4E is an example for flawed understanding on what can make an already established product successful. It had great "game" qualities, but lacked in both, "play" and "toy", which made 3E into such a roaring success. The "toy" qualities are really important for TTRPGs, as they've been part of the experience for so long. A, say, crafting system might absolutely have no impact to or improve on the actual "game" parts, nor does keeping an in-game journal for a character, but they make up parts of the overall D&D experience. Disregard that and you'll alienate your customer base.

Edit: From my POV, that's something noticeable throughout this whole discussion. Most things Quertus mentions as part of the "sandbox experience" are far away from the "game" qualities, while DU totally discounts the "toy" and "play" qualities. Personally, I don't offer "a world to explore", but "a game to play", which shifts priority of the three elements around a bit.

Pleh

2018-03-27, 06:03 AM

Darth Ultron

2018-03-27, 07:11 AM

You can write it on paper with a pencil or scribble a basic outline on a dry erase board if you want. It's still a linear plot if the DM writes it before playing.

Right, this is the old ''if the DM prepares anything it's always wrong''.

But if the DM is SO COOL that they scribble stuff on a Taco Bell Napkin during the game, then they are the greatest DM 4Ever!

The plot of the Star Wars movies is set in stone. As are the plots of many modules. We describe those modules as Linear.

Playing with the Star Wars characters, but allowing them to go off script, would be more along the lines of a Sandbox.

And, yes, I'm horribly biased against linear games, unless the players have bought in (such as they generally do with a purchased module. I'm fine in that scenario with the GM is saying, "that isn't covered by the module"). EDIT: as such, if we ever get to the point where what I'm saying makes sense to you, we should sanity check it with someone who doesn't hate linear games with my burning passion.

Yes, the plot of any movie is set in stone....but the plot of an adventure is not. So if you use a movie as the inspiration for your adventure plot, it will NOT be the same. The adventure plot will be an adventure, with a little ''inspired by Star Wars'' tag at the front, but it will not just be a play by play of the movie.

And this is where you can't compare everything about a movie to an TRPG: TRPGs have no script. And if you mean ''go off script'' as ''be a jerk player that just does random stuff(like if the players just have their characters sit in the bar on Tattoine and drink forever)'', well that is just being a jerk.

The Star Wars Adventure Module plot would be more like ''the players find the message/plans and then must decide what to do" and have the ending of ''something needs to be done about the Death Star''. So if the characters are typical hero types, they will follow the plot of ''get the plans to the Rebels and help destroy the Death Star; if the characters are evil, they might just give or sell the plans back to the empire(and end the adventure quick), and if the characters are gray they might play both sides. Or the players can pick anything else they can think of to try. But the plot time line won't change...Addebran WILL be destroyed about a day after the Princess is captured(UNLESS the PCs are blazing fast and do something that prevents this), and the Rebels WILL be obliterated about a day later. So, for example, if the PCs with the plans just ''hang around in the desert and kill sand people'' for a week then the rebellion will be gone and the galaxy in the iron grip of the empire.

The BIG difference is the good players will follow the ''join the rebels and help destroy the Death Star plot'' as it's a fun epic adventure. The more sandbox thinking players just want to hang around on Tattonie and do only whatever THEY want to do, like randomly killing sand people or maybe opening up a cantina.

Quertus

2018-03-27, 07:12 AM

Edit: From my POV, that's something noticeable throughout this whole discussion. Most things Quertus mentions as part of the "sandbox experience" are far away from the "game" qualities, while DU totally discounts the "toy" and "play" qualities. Personally, I don't offer "a world to explore", but "a game to play", which shifts priority of the three elements around a bit.

At the risk of confusing matters further, what does a Sandbox "game" look like?

As a GM currently simultaneously preparing both a Sandbox and a Linear game, it may relax your feelings about linear games to know that doing them well involves the creation of multiple alternative paths.

In some ways, doing justice to a linear game is more work than a sandbox. A sandbox is a picture that gets better the more you bring the finer details into focus, while a linear game is an interactive novel that gets better the more you can meaningfully diversify the number of branching path options.

For simplicity and clarity, I've been trying to differentiate pure Linear from pure Sandbox. Differentiating Linear (Branching) from Sandbox-y sounds like more of a chore.

I won't deny that giving the players some Agency to affect the story in meaningful ways sounds like a good thing IMO, but I still chafe at the notion that I can't, say, meet with the thieves guild in Act 1 just because it would ruin the GM's plot if I didn't wait until Act 2, after I'd already failed to convince the King to send help against the invading orcs - let alone when "failing to convince the King in Act 1" is written in stone.

Lorsa

2018-03-27, 07:24 AM

Right, this is the old ''if the DM prepares anything it's always wrong''.

Nowhere in that quote was it mentioned anything being wrong. Nowhere in this thread has anyone said "if the DM prepares anything it's always wrong".

Except, of course, for you. Why do you insist of arguing with yourself?

Yes, the plot of any movie is set in stone....but the plot of an adventure is not.

As I have said a million times by now. For a linear type adventure, it absolutely is.

Quertus

2018-03-27, 07:33 AM

Yes, the plot of any movie is set in stone....but the plot of an adventure is not. So if you use a movie as the inspiration for your adventure plot, it will NOT be the same. The adventure plot will be an adventure, with a little ''inspired by Star Wars'' tag at the front, but it will not just be a play by play of the movie.

And this is where you can't compare everything about a movie to an TRPG: TRPGs have no script. And if you mean ''go off script'' as ''be a jerk player that just does random stuff(like if the players just have their characters sit in the bar on Tattoine and drink forever)'', well that is just being a jerk.

The Star Wars Adventure Module plot would be more like ''the players find the message/plans and then must decide what to do" and have the ending of ''something needs to be done about the Death Star''. So if the characters are typical hero types, they will follow the plot of ''get the plans to the Rebels and help destroy the Death Star; if the characters are evil, they might just give or sell the plans back to the empire(and end the adventure quick), and if the characters are gray they might play both sides. Or the players can pick anything else they can think of to try. But the plot time line won't change...Addebran WILL be destroyed about a day after the Princess is captured(UNLESS the PCs are blazing fast and do something that prevents this), and the Rebels WILL be obliterated about a day later. So, for example, if the PCs with the plans just ''hang around in the desert and kill sand people'' for a week then the rebellion will be gone and the galaxy in the iron grip of the empire.

The BIG difference is the good players will follow the ''join the rebels and help destroy the Death Star plot'' as it's a fun epic adventure. The more sandbox thinking players just want to hang around on Tattonie and do only whatever THEY want to do, like randomly killing sand people or maybe opening up a cantina.

Cabin in the woods again - in a Sandbox, the PCs may never actually do anything about that Death Star. They may be content trying to rid the world of evil Sand People in their genocidal murderhobo quest to avenge their long-lost grandmother, or to open a legal practice to help people sue laser-sword wielders for limb loss. And, in a Sandbox, that would be The Plot.

Players who Metagame and practice Participationism may notice that a GM running a Linear game was pushing for a Linear "Join the Rebellion" plot, and go along before the GM Railroads them into the plot by having the evil empire murder the rest of their (known) family.

However, a properly vengeful murderhobo would, when the Linear GM Railroads the party onto the Death Star (without which, the empire would never find the Rebellion), realize that the Falcon is a spaceship, and find a way to depressurize the Death Star (then add it to their inventory, and use it to wipe out the empire). The Linear GM would then Railroad some excuse that this doesn't work, to keep the game on the rails of the prescribed plot, while a Sandbox GM would simply follow the rules and allow the attempt to succeed or fail based on established facts of reality.

EDIT: just to be clear, the plot of a Linear adventure is set in stone. That's the bloody definition.

EDIT:
As I have said a million times by now. For a linear type adventure, it absolutely is.

Hahaha, yeah, this. :smallwink:

Florian

2018-03-27, 07:38 AM

And, yes, I'm horribly biased against linear games, unless the players have bought in (such as they generally do with a purchased module. I'm fine in that scenario with the GM is saying, "that isn't covered by the module"). EDIT: as such, if we ever get to the point where what I'm saying makes sense to you, we should sanity check it with someone who doesn't hate linear games with my burning passion.

I think this is the contested center position of this whole discussion. When we talk "plot", you think of a linear narrative (story), for me, the plot is the sandbox and divorced from the location. Once you begin to engage with it, there's a "quantum wave collapse" and it will turn linear by default, as either time happens or actions lead to result lead to reaction.

(To understand this example, go back a few pages and read about the L5R campaign I mentioned)

Hook: There's been an apparent double suicide down at the docks, investigate.

Plot: It´s been "a thousand years of peace" and young and juvenile samurai chafe at not having a chance at glory. The bodily handicapped son of an influential lord has been contacted by a Maho cult, restored his health by blood sacrifices and wants to instigate a small coup. The "victims" are a ronin who delivered the sacrifices, but started blackmail, a lower-ranked samurai-ko that witnessed it and wanted to alert the government.

The rest is basically a list of persons connected to the whole mess, what they know, where they are, how they're connected, the whole list of small details, including slice-of-life stuff and a list of who pressures whom.

The whole thing is "linear" because it happens on a timeline. If not interacted with by the players, it will turn to a certain result, namely the assassination of the governor in the Red Lamps District at the 10th day.

(I can provide full details if someone wants to try a hand at that scenario. Was actually pretty cool and my players enjoyed that they had full agency while exploring it - and yes, they failed at solving it)

At the risk of confusing matters further, what does a Sandbox "game" look like?

"Game" is the activity that we actually use that weird rule books for. "Play" and "toy" are the things that we can also do, but they don't necessarily have a direct connection to the game we play. To explore that topic further, we´d actually have to decide on one or more systems to examine and see where that leads us (well get very different results when comparing 3E D&D to VtM).

As I have said a million times by now. For a linear type adventure, it absolutely is.

And you're still wrong. What you describe are "plots" that are created with a certain dramaturgy in mind, having an act structure and which need a certain timing for "full impact".

Quertus

2018-03-27, 08:03 AM

I think this is the contested center position of this whole discussion. When we talk "plot", you think of a linear narrative (story), for me, the plot is the sandbox and divorced from the location. Once you begin to engage with it, there's a "quantum wave collapse" and it will turn linear by default, as either time happens or actions lead to result lead to reaction.

(To understand this example, go back a few pages and read about the L5R campaign I mentioned)

Hook: There's been an apparent double suicide down at the docks, investigate.

Plot: It´s been "a thousand years of peace" and young and juvenile samurai chafe at not having a chance at glory. The bodily handicapped son of an influential lord has been contacted by a Maho cult, restored his health by blood sacrifices and wants to instigate a small coup. The "victims" are a ronin who delivered the sacrifices, but started blackmail, a lower-ranked samurai-ko that witnessed it and wanted to alert the government.

The rest is basically a list of persons connected to the whole mess, what they know, where they are, how they're connected, the whole list of small details, including slice-of-life stuff and a list of who pressures whom.

The whole thing is "linear" because it happens on a timeline. If not interacted with by the players, it will turn to a certain result, namely the assassination of the governor in the Red Lamps District at the 10th day.

(I can provide full details if someone wants to try a hand at that scenario. Was actually pretty cool and my players enjoyed that they had full agency while exploring it - and yes, they failed at solving it)

"Game" is the activity that we actually use that weird rule books for. "Play" and "toy" are the things that we can also do, but they don't necessarily have a direct connection to the game we play. To explore that topic further, we´d actually have to decide on one or more systems to examine and see where that leads us (well get very different results when comparing 3E D&D to VtM).

And you're still wrong. What you describe are "plots" that are created with a certain dramaturgy in mind, having an act structure and which need a certain timing for "full impact".

Ugh, this is hard. Well, hard, for me, to wrap my head around. So...

Getting to choose the destination - getting to decide whether the cabin in the woods is the end goal - is part of the Sandbox "toy" or "play"? Buying in to "the plot is to investigate X" is outside the "game"?

Once that premise is chosen, the players are free to investigate however they choose. Ok. And if they should, say, uncover enough that their gut tells them that the governor is in danger, and decide that their best course of action is to go ronin (or, more accurately, dress up as ninjas) and abduct the governor, then return to continue to investigate... or to try to get in on the action and help assassinate that **** of a governor? If they "go off the rails" of the expected plot at this stage, is that sandboxing the game, toy, or play?

But, which parts of the game are part of the game, toy, and play will vary by RPG system?

Am I so confused I sound like I'm trying to fight a straw man yet?

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-27, 08:16 AM

"Game" is the activity that we actually use that weird rule books for. "Play" and "toy" are the things that we can also do, but they don't necessarily have a direct connection to the game we play.

An utterly artificial divide, that also happens to take much of what differentiates an RPG from a complex board game and dismiss it -- in your own belittling words -- as "playing with barbies".

Pleh

2018-03-27, 09:53 AM

For simplicity and clarity, I've been trying to differentiate pure Linear from pure Sandbox. Differentiating Linear(Branching) from Sandbox-y sounds like more of a chore.

I won't deny that giving the players some Agency to affect the story in meaningful ways sounds like a good thing IMO, but I still chafe at the notion that I can't, say, meet with the thieves guild in Act 1 just because it would ruin the GM's plot if I didn't wait until Act 2, after I'd already failed to convince the King to send help against the invading orcs - let alone when "failing to convince the King in Act 1" is written in stone.

See, when you say, "pure linear" we're talking in theoretical absolutes that don't have much bearing in reality. In my mind, if "pure linear" means, "zero player agency" then it can hardly be called a "game" and if "linear" is meant to describe "games" in this context, then we've said this game is so much this particular kind of game that it no longer is a game.

In my mind, that degree is not necessary to even consider because it's defined itself out of existence. At that point, you aren't evaluating linear games, you're evaluating narrative structure and oral story presentation (and if you still think it's a game, you're also dealing with delusions).

To me, talking about Linear Games has to define "low agency games" as opposed to "zero agency games."

My point was that my current efforts to generate a Linear Game have been involved attempting to create exactly as much agency as I believe feels reasonable (which involves a lot of stopping in the creating process to "try it on" as a player and see if it feels right).

For example, the present work I'm doing involves a recreation of the opening scene from The Phantom Menace. The heroes escort Qui Gon and Obi Wan aboard the Trade Federation Lucrehulk in orbit above Naboo. After parking, Qui Gon instructs his notoriously "PC Adventurer Totally Not Psychotic Murderhobos" escort to wait at the ship and not start any trouble, as this is supposed to be a diplomatic scenario (even though he has a bad feeling about it). Naturally, the Trade Federation tries to kill them all and the adventure begins.

While I've negated the choice to not take the mission by beginning play at the start of the mission, I've gotten the player's approval of this scenario and I've been preparing it by going through all the solutions I would consider as a player. Maybe staying at the ship when combat starts is good, because 1) Qui Gon told me to and 2) it's unwise to leave our method of travel unguarded.

Then again, I'm here to protect the Jedi and the DM has warned me that characters essential to the plot CAN die in this Alternate Universe and so it might be better to save the Jedi, since we can probably find another ship later if necessary (as the Jedi did in the movie, anyway).

Then IF I choose to rescue the Jedi, do I fight my way across the hanger or try to bypass their security through the Tram System and maintenance access?

Then I take my preparations a step further and say, "If I wanted to totally outthink the scenario, how would I do it?" Well, I could always take a walk outside. Life Support Suits are an essential adventurer equipment for space heroes and the Lucre Hulk will have less security against heroes walking on the outside of the ship. From there, I just have to hack into the droid maintenance access near the core (where droids are normally deployed to repair external damage).

What if I just start the ship and fly down to the Core just like Anakin did at the end of TPM? I would tell the players that isn't going to work and their characters know it. First of all, Anakin's scenario was totally different: a widespread space battle featuring dozens of fighters to distract the Trade Federation was going on. This also had the effect of giving the Trade Federation a reason to leave their hanger doors open as they needed to be able to deploy fighters on demand, they weren't currently focused on an internal threat like they are with the heroes and the Jedi. The doors will be closed and it won't be reasonable to just smash through them with the ship's guns. On foot, they can try to slice the security consoles to get through. Walking is viable, flying is not (unless they want to try to fly out of the Lucrehulk, which would be possible, but challenging as the Trade Federation has reason to suspect such a tactic).

Then I start thinking, "Okay, so what's the thing I fear happening most as a DM as it could destroy future plans?"

"We capture Nute Gunray. Naboo Crisis averted."

Well, clearly Qui Gon attempted to do that when he started cutting through the blast door with his lightsaber, but was forced to retreat by the droidekas. What's to stop Qui Gon if he has a team of PC heroes helping him? I know I have to plan for if they are successful in capturing Nute.

And so on and so forth. In preparing a Linear game, I start with a Canon Progression that is what I would like to see happen most, then I put myself in the scenario as a player trying to think of other ways the game could go at each step.

An utterly artificial divide, that also happens to take much of what differentiates an RPG from a complex board game and dismiss it -- in your own belittling words -- as "playing with barbies".

Meh. Every semantic division, however valid/apparent or lack thereof, is ultimately an artificial human construction designed to help break down a larger concept into smaller parts.

Saying "the sky" is separate from "the ground" is an artificial divide we created to communicate the different ways we interact with these aspects of the universe we live in.

Divisions being artificial is no real criticism. The real question is what insight do we gain by implementing such division as opposed to what we might lose in breaking apart the larger subject?

I feel like the terms, "toy/play/game" are quite useful distinctions. Even just within the system of D&D 3.5, there have been games I've played purely because the character build was fun and I wanted the chance to use it. In that instance, the Character was more of a Toy like an action figure I played with when I was little. Everything else in the game was secondary to getting to use some of my character's abilities. In other games, I played more or less stock characters because the Dungeon was the point of the fun and the Game was the mechanism.

If you find the idea of playing with barbies derogatory, I'd ask exactly what you have against barbies? Seems like an irrational stigma. Because action figures are the same thing and when I am in love with a character concept and just want to play out the character, I would have to say "playing barbie" with the character is an apt description. Just because the character happens to also function legally in an RPG system in no way lessens the fact that we dress the characters, name the characters, describe their daily activities, manage their resources, and generally participate in wish fulfillment through the characters.

There's nothing embarrassing about playing with barbies, especially because there's no limit on what kinds of people those barbies can choose to become. Now, I could see an argument that the Barbie Hasbro Brand has been rather woefully stuck on (arguably harmful) gender stereotypes for the last several decades, but that doesn't have much to do with "playing with barbies," that's just critiquing how its been marketed.

---

I had an epiphany a few hours ago.

The thing DU doesn't like about the terms, "linear/sandbox/railroad" is that they are neutral, descriptive definitions. Instead, DU wants to propose we use words like, "normal/good/bad" which are all subjective evaluations with prescriptive definitions. Normal with respect to what? Good compared to what? Then recalling the rest of the arguments, it seems clear that the "standard" is his own games.

DU literally wants to make the universe revolve around himself and he does it by defining his own subjective standards prescriptively to justify rejecting the established (and more useful) objective descriptions that work without looking to DU as some kind of ideal.

Florian

2018-03-27, 10:07 AM

Ugh, this is hard. Well, hard, for me, to wrap my head around. So...

Getting to choose the destination - getting to decide whether the cabin in the woods is the end goal - is part of the Sandbox "toy" or "play"? Buying in to "the plot is to investigate X" is outside the "game"?

Once that premise is chosen, the players are free to investigate however they choose. Ok. And if they should, say, uncover enough that their gut tells them that the governor is in danger, and decide that their best course of action is to go ronin (or, more accurately, dress up as ninjas) and abduct the governor, then return to continue to investigate... or to try to get in on the action and help assassinate that **** of a governor? If they "go off the rails" of the expected plot at this stage, is that sandboxing the game, toy, or play?

But, which parts of the game are part of the game, toy, and play will vary by RPG system?

Am I so confused I sound like I'm trying to fight a straw man yet?

If it helps, think of it like this:

Game: This is what a group meets up for and decides on a rules system to use, that governs how it is handled. Let's call that the core activity. (If you're into classic hex crawls, you need a map, you need travel times, resources, how to teleport from A to B and so on. As long as you hex crawl, you play the game)

Play: This is what the group can also do, but is not directly related to progressing the game. (Role-play an evening at the local tavern, go in-depth on local botany without really exploring a hex, so on).

Toy: This is your private affair that doesn't even touch upon game or play because it´s not a group activity, but something for your own personal amusement. (This is you envisioning, handling and managing your Quertus outside of actual groups, people musing about great PO builds that they want to try out independent of campaign, this is Max going for immersion, so on.) - and no, Max, there's nothing belittling or derogatory about that, that's your own bias speaking.

On the other issue: Screw the physical map, that's totally unimportant. Rather think in persons and how they are related to each other (R-Map). Now add power, obligations and consequences and you get a map with mountains (the heavyweights), rivers (how power flows), trees (the people involved) and so on - a "plot" can also be a map that you have the freedom and agency to do what you want.

Lorsa

2018-03-27, 10:32 AM

And you're still wrong. What you describe are "plots" that are created with a certain dramaturgy in mind, having an act structure and which need a certain timing for "full impact".

The fact that so many people agree with me makes it hard to convince me that I am simply "wrong".

You can disagree on the name of the terms chosen, but the concepts are still there.

For example, what would you call the thing that is created with a certain dramaturgy in mind?

Also, what would you call an adventure where the DM has already determined the sequence of events/scenes/encounters/outcomes ahead of time?

You are free to push your own terminology, and see if it sticks with the overall community.

Personally, I like to call the former term plot and the latter thing linear adventure. The motivation for this is simple.

For the first, the word plot is then tied very well to storytelling from books/theater/movies and the like. It makes it possible to describe to someone who is stuck in the idea that a RPG adventure has to be like that of a book or movie how "you don't have to make a plot for a RPG", and then have them understand what they're doing "wrong" (in the case the players don't like to have such a plot).

For the second, when describing different types of adventures, the word linear brings to my mind a structure following a narrow line. You can't really diverge when following a line, so the term feels quite intuitive to me.

As I said, if you want different terminology, that is fine. Explain what words you want to use, with a motivation as to why yours are better than the ones that are currently prevalent. See if they stick. If they don't stick, adapt to common useage. Else communication breaks.

I mean, in contemporary environmental political discussions, there is this term called "renewable energy". I find that term incredibly stupid, since ALL energy is renewable. I mean, kinetic energy is renewable, electrical potential energy is renewable etc etc. Is so stupid I don't even know where to being. At some time in the past, it used to be "renewable energy source", but even THAT is stupid. Most often people count "solar power" as being a "renewable source", whereas "oil" is not. Which is the wrong way around. We can, and WILL get new oil, it just might take some time, but when the sun goes out WE ARE IN DEEP ****. It's simply not coming back, ever. So the terminology is extremely flawed in my eyes.

Still, I have to use it, as this is the common useage of the terms.

It seems to me as if most people agree with my use of "plot" and "linear adventure". If you can show me that this is indeed not so, I will change my terminology accordingly.

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-27, 10:32 AM

Meh. Every semantic division, however valid/apparent or lack thereof, is ultimately an artificial human construction designed to help break down a larger concept into smaller parts.

Saying "the sky" is separate from "the ground" is an artificial divide we created to communicate the different ways we interact with these aspects of the universe we live in.

If you're going to assert that all divisions are artificial, you should at least start with an example that's actually artificial.

If no human being had ever existed, there would still be an inherent and objective difference between the solid part of a planet and the gaseous atmosphere around it. Without or without human thinking, understanding, or words, the things we call solid and gas are objectively different states of matter. The universe objectively exists with or without us, our perception, or our labels.

Divisions being artificial is no real criticism. The real question is what insight do we gain by implementing such division as opposed to what we might lose in breaking apart the larger subject?

I feel like the terms, "toy/play/game" are quite useful distinctions. Even just within the system of D&D 3.5, there have been games I've played purely because the character build was fun and I wanted the chance to use it. In that instance, the Character was more of a Toy like an action figure I played with when I was little. Everything else in the game was secondary to getting to use some of my character's abilities. In other games, I played more or less stock characters because the Dungeon was the point of the fun and the Game was the mechanism.

It may be a construct that some find useful for themselves, but as with some other topics recently discussed (example, "all gaming is storytelling"), trying to apply it universally utterly fails to recognize that the person adopting the framework is only speaking for their own approach to and experience of playing RPGs -- and that trying to claim it as a universal truth that applies to all other gamers regardless of their different experience and approach is just arrogant and insulting in the extreme.

Personally, I find the entire attempt to separate what's being separated by "game" vs "toy" to be utterly irrelevant to my experience and approach, and not only useless, but actively counterproductive. Splitting character creation, or backstory, or internal experience, from what's explicitly "at the table", is nonsense.

If you find the idea of playing with barbies derogatory, I'd ask exactly what you have against barbies? Seems like an irrational stigma. Because action figures are the same thing and when I am in love with a character concept and just want to play out the character, I would have to say "playing barbie" with the character is an apt description. Just because the character happens to also function legally in an RPG system in no way lessens the fact that we dress the characters, name the characters, describe their daily activities, manage their resources, and generally participate in wish fulfillment through the characters.

There's nothing embarrassing about playing with barbies, especially because there's no limit on what kinds of people those barbies can choose to become. Now, I could see an argument that the Barbie Hasbro Brand has been rather woefully stuck on (arguably harmful) gender stereotypes for the last several decades, but that doesn't have much to do with "playing with barbies," that's just critiquing how its been marketed.

I find it derogatory because it has a long history of being used derogatorily, as in "go play with your toys" or "go play with your dolls".

And even in the specific context, it has been used in a clearly belittling manner towards certain parts of gaming, to dismiss anything outside of a narrow range of gameplay activity.

Florian

2018-03-27, 10:45 AM

The fact that so many people agree with me makes it hard to convince me that I am simply "wrong".

For example, what would you call the thing that is created with a certain dramaturgy in mind?

Also, what would you call an adventure where the DM has already determined the sequence of events/scenes/encounters/outcomes ahead of time?

Millions of flies also dine on manure, so they can't be wrong, right? (Sorry, extreme example, but necessary).

A thing created with a certain dramaturgy in mind is a drama.

And honestly? Re-playing a pre-planned script is not even participation, it´s not role-playing at all, just (re-en)acting (unless we specifically talk about a simulation and the sequence started is a natural outcome)

Notice that theory talk often breaks down because of heavily leaning on other sectors that are only similar on the surface.

Segev

2018-03-27, 11:17 AM

I want to quibble a little bit with the definition of "linear" that some people are using. "Linear" games need not be rigid in any given scene as to how a solution is achieved. What defines, for me, a Linear Game, is one where you're progressing from pre-planned scene to pre-planned scene, preferably in a specified order. Anything that leads from Scene C to Scene D is a valid solution to Scene C. The individual scene need not be on rails, as long as all valid solutions - which can be creative and even nothing the plot-writer planned for - lead from Scene C to Scene D (and on to E, F, and G, etc.).

Good linear games may even have branches accommodating some of the more clear "game-changing choices" that can be made. These are usually termed "branching," though a lot of work goes into most "branching" games to keep it from becoming a bifurcating tree and instead keep the choices pushing back towards the main "trunk" of the plot in order to minimize how much time is spent writing scenes that will never be used.

Railroads are most egregious when they remove even the freedom to get from Scene C to Scene D by any means that still leads to Scene D. Instead, a Railroad will have one and only one way to resolve Scene C; everything else will fail.

The linear game, even an otherwise good to okay one, has some aspects of a railroad by virtue of there being those set scenes through which you must progress. If the players find a solution to the problem in Scene C that does not lead to Scene D (or Scene D-beta, or D-gamma, or another branched scene that was pre-planned to lead on to Scene E), they can take the game "off the rails," which requires lots of improvisation and/or re-writing. So the temptation - or even the necessity - might be to re-rail the game with various railroading techniques. This works best if you just tell the players what you need to do and why. It damages immersion, but keeps buy-in. Of course, if you can improvise or rewrite things, that's great.

Site-based games - which is what most people mean when they refer to "sandboxes" - are not immune to railroading. But they do allow sequence-breaking.

@Darth Ultron - "Sequence Breaking" is usually only used in video games, but can also be used in linear tabletop games. It refers to skipping a scheduled scene and doing things out of order.

The original Legend of Zelda, if I understand correctly, actually let you explore and even defeat the dungeons in just about any order. Various items in them would let you explore various other dungeons to greater extents if you had them, but you could do the game in almost any order you wanted, with the exception of fighting Gannon at the end having to have all temples finished first. This is a site-based adventure game.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a much more linear game. You more or less must complete each dungeon in order, as Navi and other plot fairies point you to them. You need the Megaton Hammer from Death Mountain to finish the Water Temple, because it has switches that bar your path forward if you don't have it. You need the hook shot to even get to the Gerudo Desert and the Spirit Temple.

Therefore, if you go to the Water Temple before you finish Death Mountain, you're sequence-breaking. Some games allow this more than others. My play through of Ocarina of Time involved skipping Death Mountain and going straight to the Water Temple, because I wanted to get something from the Water Temple that I needed for the Biggoron Sword side-quest. IIRC (it's been 16 or so years), I was able to get what I needed from the water temple and go complete the Biggoron Sword quest so that I had said sword when I went through the Fire Temple on Death Mountain. Either that, or I only went as far into the Fire Temple as it took to get the Megaton Hammer before moving on.

Some games, if you find a way to sequence-break, you either glitch out or you find that it just assumes you've completed the parts you skipped. Others are much more robustly site-based, and "sequence breaking" is incredibly hard because there isn't a set sequence to break.

I understand that Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has everything you do before going to face Gannon be optional. You can run right to the final boss fight...though it'll be a lot harder without the cool gear you get from other parts of the game. I don't know if you can do the gear-earning dungeons in any order or if some are barred from completion without the plot-item from other ones, but it is very site-based and non-linear because of the freedom to go anywhere and do anything in any order.

Now, using Darth Ultron's definitions, the dungeons, individually, are the "plot" where the "normal game" starts. Because they are generally a bit more linear. At best, they're branching and all lead finally to the boss room. But Darth Ultron is the only person I know who would argue that the dungeons are the only "normal game" part of Legend of Zelda, and that the rest is meaninglessly random.

Both men and women are "normal human beings", yet they are clearly different.

There are plenty of ways to differentiate between things without one of them being a "baseline normal". I mean, just imagine if 50% of all chairs where white and 50% where black. Then there'd be no "normal" color, yet we could clearly tell them apart by one being white and the other black.While I am prone to hyperbole, I do not think I am engaging in it when I say that never has any post on this forum more made me wish there was a "like" or "insightful" or other ratings system on this forum than this one.

As a software engineer and hobbyist game designer, the discussion of the capabilities of video games in this thread is... disturbing. Not that I expect anything else from these kinds of threads.

The limitations that DU is whining about in video games are literally brought about by the fact that "plots" in video games are pre-designed. As in, the game designer (DM) comes up with an Adventure for players to play through, and thus has to constrain actions (Railroad) such that the players cannot act outside of the expected parameters. All of the reasons that DU is attacking video games are brought about by the tactics he is claiming are essential to TTRPGs. Those tactics are being used to attack sandboxes in a flurry of ignorance and arrogance, which is both hilarious and sad at once.

If DU is able to foretell every single possible action a player could perform in any situation, perhaps he would be best suited to designing a video game, considering that he would be solving the problems he has with the medium. (Problems, may I add, which have not yet been solved by the largest media industry in the world.)
Darth Ultron has dismissed it as "pointless," but Minecraft is sort of the ultimate sandbox game. It has resources lying around out there, and rules on how those resources interact. It has monsters that spawn in regulated but semi-random ways, and monsters behave according to certain rules. Players create their own goals and build whatever they want within the confines of how the game world's rules work. There exist "adventure sites" with better resources or unique experiences. The Nether is far more dangerous than the normal world, and is accessed by very particular rules involving obsidian gates players can construct. However, it has resources that don't exist in the normal world, and also serves as a fast travel method due to every meter in the Nether traversing eight meters in the normal world (so two obsidian gates 8x as far from each other in the normal world as they are from each other in the Nether). There's also "The End," which has specified quest goals to get to, a particular boss fight to have there, and then has interesting unique resources if you explore it beyond its boss fight confines.

It's hardly "meaningless" or "random." Players act with definite purpose in the game, towards their own goals.

Pleh

2018-03-27, 11:36 AM

If you're going to assert that all divisions are artificial, you should at least start with an example that's actually artificial.

If no human being had ever existed, there would still be an inherent and objective difference between the solid part of a planet and the gaseous atmosphere around it. Without or without human thinking, understanding, or words, the things we call solid and gas are objectively different states of matter. The universe objectively exists with or without us, our perception, or our labels.

It's all just atoms interacting with each other.

I can just as easily argue that the distinctions between Toys and Games as defined here and elsewhere are just as valid regardless of if humans exist.

The human distinction between solid and gas is completely artificial. It is an artificial concept designed to create an objective description of things we experience. The definitions seek to do the same.

It may be a construct that some find useful for themselves, but as with some other topics recently discussed (example, "all gaming is storytelling"), trying to apply it universally utterly fails to recognize that the person adopting the framework is only speaking for their own approach to and experience of playing RPGs -- and that trying to claim it as a universal truth that applies to all other gamers regardless of their different experience and approach is just arrogant and insulting in the extreme.

Personally, I find the entire attempt to separate what's being separated by "game" vs "toy" to be utterly irrelevant to my experience and approach, and not only useless, but actively counterproductive. Splitting character creation, or backstory, or internal experience, from what's explicitly "at the table", is nonsense.

I find it derogatory because it has a long history of being used derogatorily, as in "go play with your toys" or "go play with your dolls".

And even in the specific context, it has been used in a clearly belittling manner towards certain parts of gaming, to dismiss anything outside of a narrow range of gameplay activity.

This isn't saying that the definitions are in any way wrong or incorrect, just that you don't like them, which is fine, but hardly speaks to the merits (or lack thereof) of the theory. You don't have a counterargument here that extends very far past, "no, it's not."

Which is fine, you don't have to do anything, but it really speaks to the strength of a theory when the detractors have no tangible counterargument. If you could elaborate on why or how "game vs toy" is irrelevant and/or counterproductive to your experience and approach, then we could see the limitations of the theory a bit better.

"It's condescending and I don't like it" doesn't tell us much. Condescending doesn't matter much if the theory happens to be right anyway. That's just a matter of tweaking the philosophy so as to present the same concepts in a more palatable format.

kyoryu

2018-03-27, 12:01 PM

Millions of flies also dine on manure, so they can't be wrong, right? (Sorry, extreme example, but necessary).

Flies have different needs than people.

The millions of flies have different needs for nourishment than people do. So they are not *wrong*, but that doesn't mean that people should eat manure.

That's not really a direct refutation of your point (and I disagree that it's necessary!), but is *quite* relevant to the RPG theory sidetrips we've taken.

Now, when it comes to language, it helps to use the definition that is commonly accepted, as the point of language is to communicate. And the word isn't that important anyway, really. What matters is the concept behind it. So if the concept is "a pre-scripted adventure where players get to make few if any choices", and the commonly used word is "linear", then why not just use that word?

And clearly people *do* play those types of games, as evidenced by many adventure paths, much organized play, and certainly a ton of classic modules (most of DragonLance, etc.).

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-27, 12:18 PM

It's all just atoms interacting with each other.

I can just as easily argue that the distinctions between Toys and Games as defined here and elsewhere are just as valid regardless of if humans exist.

The human distinction between solid and gas is completely artificial. It is an artificial concept designed to create an objective description of things we experience. The definitions seek to do the same.

Anything can be "argued easily"... sophistry is a thing. Sadly, in a world afflicted with postmodernism, it's a common thing.

A solid and a gas do not exhibit the same physical properties -- regardless of what you name them, etc. The interactions of the atoms in a solid are not the same as the interactions of the atoms in a gas. The differences exist, objectively. The distinctions are about those different properties that would exist regardless of whether they were ever perceived or named -- absolutely nothing artificial about any of it.

For a contrasting example, the fruit of "domesticated" cultivars of the tomato plant is classified as a "vegetable" in western cooking and the produce industry and the grocery retail industry because of how it's viewed by the people involved. It's a subjective distinction that doesn't exist outside human perception.

This isn't saying that the definitions are in any way wrong or incorrect, just that you don't like them, which is fine, but hardly speaks to the merits (or lack thereof) of the theory. You don't have a counterargument here that extends very far past, "no, it's not."

Which is fine, you don't have to do anything, but it really speaks to the strength of a theory when the detractors have no tangible counterargument. If you could elaborate on why or how "game vs toy" is irrelevant and/or counterproductive to your experience and approach, then we could see the limitations of the theory a bit better.

"It's condescending and I don't like it" doesn't tell us much. Condescending doesn't matter much if the theory happens to be right anyway. That's just a matter of tweaking the philosophy so as to present the same concepts in a more palatable format.

The "game/play/toy" concept draws a distinction that is utterly alien to my experience of and approach to gaming -- and I am not alone in this.

From here it is like a "theory of eating" that tries to separate texture from taste from temperature -- some people's enjoyment of food follows that theory, their enjoyment of food is divided up between the three distinctly; other people's enjoyment of food inextricably links the three, and a mismatch can ruin the food even if it's a taste or texture or temperature they might enjoy otherwise.

And yet as in every field, there will always be that jerk who insists that their theory of eating is universally applicable and that the three aspects of food are clearly separate and distinct for all people everywhere.

Maybe "game/play/toy" works for some people, bully for them. As a subjective framework to understand and explain their own approach to and experience of "gaming", it's functional. Great.

But it clearly does not provide any insight into, any understanding of, or any explanation of, the way many other gamers experience and approach gaming.

When stated as a universal absolute rather than a personally useful subjective concept, the theory is flat wrong -- and attempting to assert that it is universally applicable to all gamers is condescending, arrogant, and asinine.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-27, 12:19 PM

And clearly people *do* play those types of games, as evidenced by many adventure paths, much organized play, and certainly a ton of classic modules (most of DragonLance, etc.).

And by the link I posted earlier--one of the major complaints about the printed (hardcover) 5e D&D adventures is that they weren't linear enough! That the breadcrumbs, the plot hooks weren't pointed enough. That it was too easy to wander around "looking for plot"!

As alien as that is to me, there are a lot of people who seem to enjoy it.

One really common thing I see (lots of places) is confusing "I like this" with "this is objectively good" (or vice versa). There's lots of trashy literature that I enjoy. And lots of "good" literature that bores me. So when talking about things designed primarily to be enjoyed, popularity provides a rebuttable presumption of quality. Its meeting a lot of people's requirements, and who are you to say that your requirements are "more right" than theirs?

Sidebar: this is not to say that there is no such thing as objective quality. But a perfect design that no one likes or will use is a pretty crappy design. It's a trap lots of software developers fall into. You can make the best (technically-speaking or architectured, or whatever) software in the world but if it doesn't meet people's subjective needs, it won't be used and you wasted your time. Subjective things are often more important than objective things.

Koo Rehtorb

2018-03-27, 12:37 PM

And by the link I posted earlier--one of the major complaints about the printed (hardcover) 5e D&D adventures is that they weren't linear enough! That the breadcrumbs, the plot hooks weren't pointed enough. That it was too easy to wander around "looking for plot"!

As alien as that is to me, there are a lot of people who seem to enjoy it.

There are indeed many people who are "bad at roleplaying games", as it were.

kyoryu

2018-03-27, 01:08 PM

One really common thing I see (lots of places) is confusing "I like this" with "this is objectively good" (or vice versa). There's lots of trashy literature that I enjoy. And lots of "good" literature that bores me. So when talking about things designed primarily to be enjoyed, popularity provides a rebuttable presumption of quality. Its meeting a lot of people's requirements, and who are you to say that your requirements are "more right" than theirs?

Exactly. "Goodness" is nothing more than a measure of fitness to purpose. People need to realize that not everybody has the same requirements.

Is Ke$ha "as good" as Mozart? I dunno, but I don't think Mozart is going to do a particularly good job of it in a dance club.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-27, 01:12 PM

There are indeed many people who are "bad at roleplaying games", as it were.

For one particular measure of "badness".

Exactly. "Goodness" is nothing more than a measure of fitness to purpose. People need to realize that not everybody has the same requirements.

Is Ke$ha "as good" as Mozart? I dunno, but I don't think Mozart is going to do a particularly good job of it in a dance club.

Agreed.

As with many things, deciding what to measure, what to define as "good" is 90% of the battle. And unless we agree on that...

kyoryu

2018-03-27, 01:21 PM

Agreed.

As with many things, deciding what to measure, what to define as "good" is 90% of the battle. And unless we agree on that...

And this is where I think "good roleplaying theory" would start. Enumerating common needs (with an explicit note that it's not a comprehensive list Because People), and identifying common techniques in games, and identifying which needs those support or hinder.

It is incredibly non-sexy work.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-27, 01:49 PM

And this is where I think "good roleplaying theory" would start. Enumerating common needs (with an explicit note that it's not a comprehensive list Because People), and identifying common techniques in games, and identifying which needs those support or hinder.

It is incredibly non-sexy work.

I agree. It’s more like systematic classification and observation than it is first-principles modeling.

Segev

2018-03-27, 03:04 PM

Apologies if this was explained somewhere and I missed it, but what is "game/play/toy" theory?

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-27, 03:12 PM

Apologies if this was explained somewhere and I missed it, but what is "game/play/toy" theory?

Here's what we have most recently.

If it helps, think of it like this:

Game: This is what a group meets up for and decides on a rules system to use, that governs how it is handled. Let's call that the core activity. (If you're into classic hex crawls, you need a map, you need travel times, resources, how to teleport from A to B and so on. As long as you hex crawl, you play the game)

Play: This is what the group can also do, but is not directly related to progressing the game. (Role-play an evening at the local tavern, go in-depth on local botany without really exploring a hex, so on).

Toy: This is your private affair that doesn't even touch upon game or play because it´s not a group activity, but something for your own personal amusement. (This is you envisioning, handling and managing your Quertus outside of actual groups, people musing about great PO builds that they want to try out independent of campaign, this is Max going for immersion, so on.) - and no, Max, there's nothing belittling or derogatory about that, that's your own bias speaking.

"Game" is the activity that we actually use that weird rule books for. "Play" and "toy" are the things that we can also do, but they don't necessarily have a direct connection to the game we play. To explore that topic further, we´d actually have to decide on one or more systems to examine and see where that leads us (well get very different results when comparing 3E D&D to VtM).

"Toy, Play, Game" - Behavioral Sciences, Product Design: This is about the multiple overlapping uses and stages of engagement an object or activity can have.
Toy: Activity related to the object, non-directional, solo.
Play: Activity using the object, directional, solo or group.
Game: Structured rules directing "Play" while using the object, solo or group.

Products are often successful in the mainstream because they offer all three levels of engagement simultaneously (see LEGO, D&D, WoW...). In context of TTRPG discussions, two facets of it seem to be important:
- Games that have a "toy mode" are fun because they offer "off table" activity, like character building, writing fan fiction, being open to immersion.
- There's also "hostile overlap" between those activities, like character building and actual game not matching, rules and immersion not matching, switching between the three modes not happening as intended.

Example: Games often have some kind of "crafting system" attached to amuse players. Picking something up from the "Sandbox" discussion, we have a case of hostile overlap when 3 players want to explore the sandbox, the fourth player is only there to amusing himself by crafting.

Quertus

2018-03-27, 03:39 PM

See, when you say, "pure linear" we're talking in theoretical absolutes that don't have much bearing in reality. In my mind, if "pure linear" means, "zero player agency" then it can hardly be called a "game" and if "linear" is meant to describe "games" in this context, then we've said this game is so much this particular kind of game that it no longer is a game.

In my mind, that degree is not necessary to even consider because it's defined itself out of existence.

I have played in a great many incredibly Linear - and incredibly heavily-handedly Railroaded - games. I'm not talking some ivory tower theory, I'm describing the level of Linear that actually exists in the field, as I am pulling from some of the games I've actually played in / walked out of.

So perhaps my words were less than perfectly clear as to my meaning.

I know I have to plan for if they are successful in capturing Nute.

That is, indeed, very linear (branching) thinking. But your example is, IMO, way too open to help really bring home the differences between a Linear game and a Sandbox to one who hasn't gotten it over the past however many pages / threads. Which is why I'm trying to stick to Linear (no branches).

Meh. Every semantic division, however valid/apparent or lack thereof, is ultimately an artificial human construction designed to help break down a larger concept into smaller parts.

Saying "the sky" is separate from "the ground" is an artificial divide we created to communicate the different ways we interact with these aspects of the universe we live in.

Divisions being artificial is no real criticism. The real question is what insight do we gain by implementing such division as opposed to what we might lose in breaking apart the larger subject?

I feel like the terms, "toy/play/game" are quite useful distinctions. Even just within the system of D&D 3.5, there have been games I've played purely because the character build was fun and I wanted the chance to use it. In that instance, the Character was more of a Toy like an action figure I played with when I was little. Everything else in the game was secondary to getting to use some of my character's abilities. In other games, I played more or less stock characters because the Dungeon was the point of the fun and the Game was the mechanism.

Words. Let's try this again.

The differences would be there whether anyone was there to observe them or not. But how one chooses to draw lines and create groupings is... not arbitrary, but... telling. And some groupings are more meaningful than others. I am reminded of... help me out, Playground... Erik the Viking? A scene from a movie where the captain organizes the men rowing his boat, but puts the... stronger men on one side, and the weaker on the other? So he has some switch places, and runs into a similar problem of... subconsciously sorting by stamina or arm length or something. So he corrects again and again, until he had them sorted by... bald and hairy, maybe? Exasperated, he replied that that doesn't matter.

So, sure, one can observe that there are any number of possible groupings, that any sentience could observe. In fact, a program could be written to find and observe groupings better than we humans could.

But that does not mean that any given grouping is either arbitrary or useful.

So, why is this grouping useful (to you)?

The "game/play/toy" concept draws a distinction that is utterly alien to my experience of and approach to gaming -- and I am not alone in this.

I mean, I find it a quite alien PoV myself. I haven't understood it well enough yet to measure what bearing, if any, it has on my gaming experience.

Do I take you to say that this division had absolutely no value to you whatsoever? Please explain your stance for how this division has no meaning for, say, playing your own creation vs a pregen.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-27, 05:29 PM

EDIT: just to be clear, the plot of a Linear adventure is set in stone. That's the bloody definition.

I guess that is the problem: you and ''everyone'' only have this very narrow definition for this one word. Other words you can agree have many meanings and definitions...but you don't like this word is it's ''always wrong''.

"Game" is the activity that we actually use that weird rule books for. "Play" and "toy" are the things that we can also do, but they don't necessarily have a direct connection to the game we play.

I don't like thease at all, and they don't even come close to my sort of TRPG.

Game just sounds like the dull roll play mechanics.

Play is the utterly meaningless waste of time so called sandbox stuff

Toy is a player being a jerk and trying to hog the spotlight or dominate the game.

DU literally wants to make the universe revolve around himself and he does it by defining his own subjective standards prescriptively to justify rejecting the established (and more useful) objective descriptions that work without looking to DU as some kind of ideal.

???

I use good and bad and such terms in the way most of the world does, except the urban elite areas of a couple places. Black Panther was a good movie. All the regular people have no problem agreeing that is was a good movie, even if they did not like it personally. The regular people can objectively say and accept something ''is'' good(or bad).

But then there are the other people that can't handle good or bad....

I want to quibble a little bit with the definition of "linear" that some people are using.

But your definition is things must be in a line OR branch out OR do something else...as long as A leads to B?

I really don't get the wacky idea that the game MUST be: Start at A------> ''Oh-My-Gosh-The-Most-amazing-thing-that- ever-happened-ever-that-on-one-ever-saw-coming-WOW!"

Like I have said the Linear part of all TRPGs is like a river that moves everything forward(a lot like time). For a plot in an adventure, you have a set goal-----> you want your character to do X. There is a whole Alphabet of Places and Encounters and such, but you do NOT have to do all or any of them AND they don't have to be done IN any order; at least from a metagame view. Though, yes, IN the game universe you do often ''have'' to do A1 to get to A2 (If the characters want to get a favor from Princess Buttercup then they ''have to'' save her if she is attacked by a killer monster: She can't grant a favor if she is dead. ) And a lot of the A-->B-->C action do make Normal Common Sense and there is no reason NOT to do them in order unless your stupid. Like if the NPC Giant has an elixir of Dragon slaying (+20 to hit and damage vs dragons) it's a bit dumb for the players to say ''whatever, we ignore that and just charge at the dragon!" Sure it ''feels like a set up'', but it's also real life: if your planning a 100 mile trip it does make sense to Fill Up your tank before you leave.

@Darth Ultron - "Sequence Breaking" is usually only used in video games, but can also be used in linear tabletop games. It refers to skipping a scheduled scene and doing things out of order.

Oh, so you mean REAL Real Life non-Linear reality going by the REAL definition of Linear and NOT the wacky RPG ''whatever'' meanings of the word. Like how, for example, Comic Books are not always Linear(again, by the normal word definition).

Well, I do this in my long running TRPGs all the time. For example, during the game, the group stops in the city of HighPoint, rests for a week, then continues the adventure: actual game time roughly five minutes. Sarah, wants her character to visit the Mages Guild of the city, but I will never do that during the group game. Instead I will run a solo game with Sarah by chat, post, e-mail or table top, where he character visits the guild. Very often this will take weeks. And the group game keeps rolling on every week too. But Sarah's characters solo adventure only fills that week of game time, though the game time and the solo time are way, way, way, way off. And like if her character say looses her spell book in ''the past'' of the solo adventure, she would also ''suddenly'' loose it during the normal weekly game(though really more often I do something wacky...and dangerous).

Pleh

2018-03-27, 09:16 PM

A solid and a gas do not exhibit the same physical properties -- regardless of what you name them, etc. The interactions of the atoms in a solid are not the same as the interactions of the atoms in a gas. The differences exist, objectively. The distinctions are about those different properties that would exist regardless of whether they were ever perceived or named -- absolutely nothing artificial about any of it.

For a contrasting example, the fruit of "domesticated" cultivars of the tomato plant is classified as a "vegetable" in western cooking and the produce industry and the grocery retail industry because of how it's viewed by the people involved. It's a subjective distinction that doesn't exist outside human perception.

Likewise, the way we enjoy a "toy/play/game" are distinct, even though they are related. After all, Solid and Liquid are the same atoms in a different energy state (neither of which having meaning when only a single atom is considered).

It's just a tool for framing the question, which makes it applicable to every scenario. You can say that a hammer only works on nails, but then I can show you that it works for screws if you try hard enough.

The "game/play/toy" concept draws a distinction that is utterly alien to my experience of and approach to gaming -- and I am not alone in this.

From here it is like a "theory of eating" that tries to separate texture from taste from temperature -- some people's enjoyment of food follows that theory, their enjoyment of food is divided up between the three distinctly; other people's enjoyment of food inextricably links the three, and a mismatch can ruin the food even if it's a taste or texture or temperature they might enjoy otherwise.

You are establishing that aspects of food are related, not that they cannot possibly be distinct.

I don't think anyone was trying to suggest that the toy/play/game definitions were trying to force every type of RPG to fit into the paradigm, but to show how most games can be viewed through this framing tool to learn more about where the players are deriving their fun.

It's perfectly fair to say, "from all three simultaneously," but this hardly refutes the premise of the theory.

Words. Let's try this again.

Well, yes, when theory turns to such detailed semantics, it really does become purely an issue of wording. That was somewhat inescapable by the nature of the subject.

The differences would be there whether anyone was there to observe them or not. But how one chooses to draw lines and create groupings is... not arbitrary, but... telling.

If a tree falls in a forest, does it make any sound? I say yes, the soundwaves will still vibrate through the air even if no creature exists in the sound range to perceive the vibrations as noise. I do not adhere to the definition of sound as a neurological impulse created by interactions with air and the eardrum.

Toy/play/game objectively describes three different ways that people can be engaging with RPGs (and other forms of entertainment, though the theory has yet to be posited to me as an all inclusive list that dictates anything beyond vaguely describing player motivations). No matter what the player is actually doing, the concept that we've observed three primary avenues of receiving enjoyment from RPGs is an objective fact (that applies case by case to players to subjective degrees).

I'd hardly call it a complete picture by itself, but there hasn't been a theory yet devised that is totally air tight.

After all, Solids are always Solids (except when they are under special thermodynamic circumstances that can make them break a few rules that normally apply to solids).

So, why is this grouping useful (to you)?

First of all, it is almost fundamentally intuitive once you parse it out. Most people are so familiar with eating from an age too early to think about what they are eating, it took mankind a while to really refine our understanding of the culinary arts of texture, flavor combinations, and appearance (and we're still learning). But the whole concept that food has texture and that some textures are more pleasant to experience is an objective fact no matter how much we find that the exact degree of pleasurableness to be variable and subjective.

The fact that it is a variable is objective. The value of that variable is subjective (which is what makes it a variable rather than a constant).

The essence of Roleplaying Games involves taking a character, placing them in a scenario, then using the rules of the game stated from the outset to resolve their actions. This means there is a Toy (the character), Play (conducting the scenario), and a Game (utilization of a system of rules to produce a result). Even though each of these variables can be set to zero or infinity (or, as Max seems to propose, confining the variables to a specific interdependency), that doesn't change the function of the variable in the equation; it only produces a special case variant of the original equation.

Are there other ways of framing the same thing? I have no doubt.

Why is it more helpful to me? It uses (more or less) clearly defined words. I've yet to see a counterexample that is alleged to make more sense.

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-27, 09:59 PM

I mean, I find it a quite alien PoV myself. I haven't understood it well enough yet to measure what bearing, if any, it has on my gaming experience.

Do I take you to say that this division had absolutely no value to you whatsoever? Please explain your stance for how this division has no meaning for, say, playing your own creation vs a pregen.

You can take it to say that this division is about as useful for understanding RPGs as the classic elemental "theory" (Air Earth Fire Water or whatever) is for understanding actual chemistry... it's somewhere around the same spot in the scale of "theories" as phlogiston and aether and phrenology. It's an artificial contrivance that tells us absolutely nothing about why people play RPGs or what they get out of it, or how they engage in and experience the activity -- and evidently it originates from a "discipline" where unfalsiable claims masquerade as "science" and telling other people how they supposedly think and feel is the height of accomplishment.

It draws lines almost exactly perpendicular to where they actually run, and as we've seen, is mainly used to belittle and dismiss things that make an RPG an RPG as supposedly disconnected from and secondary to the "game".

A roleplaying game is not a Roleplaying Game without the characters and the roleplaying... these are not distinct elements from the game, they're precisely what make an RPG not a complex boardgame or the like. The defining characteristic of an RPG is the characters -- as "people within the fiction" -- interacting with each other and the setting and the NPCs, in combat or otherwise. Take that away, and the "characters" are just plastic playing pieces in a complex boardgame (literal or in a "mindscape" board), and ironically that is when they become "toys".

And it's not a Roleplaying Game without some sort of rules/mechanical framework... and these are not distinct elements from the characters and setting and roleplaying, they're precisely what make an RPG not a session of "let's play pretend" or "story circle", and allow the characters and setting and NPCs to interact within a framework.

All these theories try so hard to divide up an RPG into little pieces, when it's only when it's all together that you even have an RPG in the first place. Slicing it up into "narrative" and "game" and "simulation" and then pushing to one extreme just ends up with "games" that can barely be called RPGs, if at all. Slicing it up into "game" and "play" and "toy" just ends up with three things that bear zero resemblance to an RPG.

For all The Forge supposedly isn't relevant any more... here we are, dealing with yet another "theory" that's based on creating an artificial threeway divide that misses the point entirely, and evidently comes steeped in the insufferable arrogance that's inherent in telling people that one knows them better than they know themselves.

Toy/play/game objectively describes three different ways that people can be engaging with RPGs (and other forms of entertainment, though the theory has yet to be posited to me as an all inclusive list that dictates anything beyond vaguely describing player motivations). No matter what the player is actually doing, the concept that we've observed three primary avenues of receiving enjoyment from RPGs is an objective fact (that applies case by case to players to subjective degrees).

And never mind the people telling you that it bears no resemblance to why they play RPGs or how they play RPGs, that it literally has nothing to do with their experiences and thought processes... you can dismiss them as irrelevant to the theory or insult them by claiming you know them better than they know themselves.

...

If it helps you understand what you do and think and experience when it comes to RPGs, great, more power to you. But that's as far as it goes in terms of it's applicability.

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-27, 10:27 PM

As with many things, deciding what to measure, what to define as "good" is 90% of the battle. And unless we agree on that...

And this is where I think "good roleplaying theory" would start. Enumerating common needs (with an explicit note that it's not a comprehensive list Because People), and identifying common techniques in games, and identifying which needs those support or hinder.

It is incredibly non-sexy work.

I agree. It’s more like systematic classification and observation than it is first-principles modeling.

You mean actually listen to gamers tell you what they're thinking and experiencing, what motivates them to participate? And not try to impose some unrelated outside theory from a superficially similar area of study, and not cram square pegs into round holes?

And admit that you're working in the descriptive instead of the prescriptive?

And accept that social science theories deal with spherical chickens in a vacuum, and not actual individuals?

Florian

2018-03-28, 01:40 AM

@Max:

It´s almost funny that you _do_ get it, then veer off into talking about GNS, which has nothing to do with it. Yes, it is both, prescriptive and descriptive and no, it´s not about belittling things but rather a look at levels of engagement.

You're absolutely right that a TTRPG needs all three levels of engagement to function. That is the prescriptive part.

The important thing, tho, is how those levels are interconnected and how we individually weight them in importance to have fun, like how "invasive" one level can be on the other levels and if that is either wanted as part of the game or more of a hindrance.

Like, for example, Traveller being near to non-invasive, the only thing that drives the game is the need for credits, while D&D is a bit more invasive as the rules elements are geared towards a certain play style and game world, while Shadow of the Demon Lord, Pendragon or Call of Cthulhu are more invasive, because they rules change your character and L5R uses feedback mechanics that even more affect your character as a result of how you play and something like Lady Blackbird removes any choices but play Lady Blackbird.

On the opposite end, we have what you can do, want to do and how you can affect how the game is played as a person, your individual level. In-between we have the actual game to you play.
So, we get very different results when playing Rokugan with the Oriental Adventures or the L5R rules because they're differently interconnected.

The relevance to this discussion is the apparently different weighting of the elements that we do and assume as "normal" without really talking about it all that much and directly.

As a simplified example:

Florian: Game. Prefers highly structured systems that heavily influence how a scenario plays out.
Darth Ultron: Play. Prefers highly complex scenarios/quests that have to be played through.
Quertus: Toy. Prefers focusing on his characters, likes to create his scenarios for himself.

For example, a game system I really like and often play, Splittermond, uses rules to turn "normal tasks", like traveling, gathering herbs, alchemy and such into small "mini adventures", similar to The One Ring. You basically can´t do a "propper hex crawl" or a "night in the pub" because of the skill-based and procedural nature of the rules system used to create that "mini adventure". That makes a "sandbox" look and feel very different from one you create for use with AD&D, for example.

In the same vain, something that we discussed earlier, the difference between 2d12 orcs and a fully flashed-out orc tribe with a time table, needs and wants and such. The expectations what minimum level of detail things encountered in the game world should have, will also change how the game is played.

Mordaedil

2018-03-28, 02:53 AM

Lorsa

2018-03-28, 04:03 AM

Millions of flies also dine on manure, so they can't be wrong, right? (Sorry, extreme example, but necessary).

Well, they're not wrong. For flies. What's that got to do with humans and, more especially, the human language?

I mean, even *I* have to accept that the word literally is not used literally anymore. No matter how much it pains me.

A thing created with a certain dramaturgy in mind is a drama.

Except that to most people, "drama" is a genre. In theater, the genre describes something that is not comedy nor tragedy. In TV and Cinema, it describes something that is serious in tone.

So if you went to someone and said "you really don't have to make your adventure into a drama", they'd most likely think you don't want them to make it so serious. Which is not what I want to communicate.

Therefore, the word "drama" would be worse than the word "plot" to describe a pre-defined sequence of events that the GM has planned for the adventure.

And honestly? Re-playing a pre-planned script is not even participation, it´s not role-playing at all, just (re-en)acting (unless we specifically talk about a simulation and the sequence started is a natural outcome)

Eh. A linear adventure plot does not involve all the dialogue in exactness, as is typical for the script of a play or movie. Therefore, it can not be said that it is pure re-enacting. In fact, if it's the first time the adventure is played, it can't be re-anything either.

If you think that a pre-planned sequence of scenes would not be a role-playing game at all, you are free to try to argue for how this type of game which is exceedingly common is NOT part of RPGs and that all those people are, in fact, doing something different.

Notice that theory talk often breaks down because of heavily leaning on other sectors that are only similar on the surface.

That's how it is with most things. The whole field of Physics suffer from this, as any talk about quantum wavicles draws on language used to describe the macroscopic world. These are not even similar on the surface, but vastly different.

But it still works, as the words draw upon concepts that helps us understand this new concept.

It's the same when RPG theory borrows words from other related fields such as theater, movies and literature. The terms need to be adapted as the concepts are different, but they can still help us understand the new concepts by relation.

I want to quibble a little bit with the definition of "linear" that some people are using. "Linear" games need not be rigid in any given scene as to how a solution is achieved. What defines, for me, a Linear Game, is one where you're progressing from pre-planned scene to pre-planned scene, preferably in a specified order. Anything that leads from Scene C to Scene D is a valid solution to Scene C. The individual scene need not be on rails, as long as all valid solutions - which can be creative and even nothing the plot-writer planned for - lead from Scene C to Scene D (and on to E, F, and G, etc.).

Yes, this is true. I thought that was pretty obvious, but maybe it was not.

While I am prone to hyperbole, I do not think I am engaging in it when I say that never has any post on this forum more made me wish there was a "like" or "insightful" or other ratings system on this forum than this one.

Wow. Thanks!

Now, when it comes to language, it helps to use the definition that is commonly accepted, as the point of language is to communicate. And the word isn't that important anyway, really. What matters is the concept behind it. So if the concept is "a pre-scripted adventure where players get to make few if any choices", and the commonly used word is "linear", then why not just use that word?

This is what I was trying to get at as well. And I have yet to receive a good answer to. Florian tried to push for the word "drama" instead of "plot". I tried to explain why "plot" was a better terminology, but if some people want to use "drama" instead, we just need a dictionary to translate.

I have yet to receive a secondary word for what most of us term "linear adventure" though.

And clearly people *do* play those types of games, as evidenced by many adventure paths, much organized play, and certainly a ton of classic modules (most of DragonLance, etc.).

Which is why any position that starts with the premise "these types of games are badwrongfun and not part of 'normal RPGs'" is inherently flawed. Oh wait, what was DU's position again?

Pleh

2018-03-28, 05:59 AM

And never mind the people telling you that it bears no resemblance to why they play RPGs or how they play RPGs, that it literally has nothing to do with their experiences and thought processes... you can dismiss them as irrelevant to the theory or insult them by claiming you know them better than they know themselves.

If they can explain how this model doesn't fit and/or another model fits better, I have more reason to agree with the person's claims that the model doesn't apply to them. When all they give me is, "don't put that on me," I feel like it's 50/50 whether they are right or just haven't actually understood the model and why it does apply to them.

I don't have to know anyone better than they know themselves. That's the wonderful thing about principles; they operate in a nigh-universal manner (that's what makes them principles).

I have no problem believing you are an exception somehow, but I'm not giving you credit until you can explain how.

Saying that "we can't use these terms because we can't have an RPG that isn't a balance of all three" comes across to me like saying we can't use the ideal gas law because you can't have a gas that lacks any of the gas law's variables.

I sure don't see a need to use the theory to categorize games or gamers. My experience tells me most players trend towards one of three aspects and they can shift around to the others to change things up and keep the game feeling fresh.

Edit: to clarify, I don't think the theory should be used to belittle people, nor is that at all what I appreciate about the theory. I value the theory's merits as a tool for understanding games and players. If the tool has been misused in the past, may only mean it has been misused.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-28, 06:57 AM

Except that to most people, "drama" is a genre. In theater, the genre describes something that is not comedy nor tragedy. In TV and Cinema, it describes something that is serious in tone.

To say Drama = Serious is wrong. Drama covers a lot more then that, even more so for TV shows and movies. Drama is a lot better to be said ''a big, meaningful deal''. RomComs, for example, have tons and tons of drama, but they are in no way ''serious'' movies. The typical reality TV show, with a spoiled brat main character, has tons and tons of drama...but it is again in no way serious.

It's the same when RPG theory borrows words from other related fields such as theater, movies and literature. The terms need to be adapted as the concepts are different, but they can still help us understand the new concepts by relation.

But they are different. It's just that people don't seem to under stand that. For example a character in a tv show/movie is NOT the same as a character in a TRPG.

This is what I was trying to get at as well. And I have yet to receive a good answer to. Florian tried to push for the word "drama" instead of "plot". I tried to explain why "plot" was a better terminology, but if some people want to use "drama" instead, we just need a dictionary to translate.

I have yet to receive a secondary word for what most of us term "linear adventure" though.

From what has been posted, it seems everyone is stuck on Linear = Railroad. They don't say that 'R" word, they just describe a game exactly like a railroad game.

Lorsa

2018-03-28, 07:51 AM

To say Drama = Serious is wrong. Drama covers a lot more then that, even more so for TV shows and movies. Drama is a lot better to be said ''a big, meaningful deal''. RomComs, for example, have tons and tons of drama, but they are in no way ''serious'' movies. The typical reality TV show, with a spoiled brat main character, has tons and tons of drama...but it is again in no way serious.

That does in no way contradict my argument that "you should make an adventure with less drama" would not lead to the desired result, if what is requested is a more open-ended structure where the players have more freedom in determining the type and sequence of scenes.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama_(film_and_television)

But they are different. It's just that people don't seem to under stand that. For example a character in a tv show/movie is NOT the same as a character in a TRPG.

I understand perfectly that they are different. This is why I can say "a TRPG does not need a plot". Because, unlike a tv show/movie, the characters have freedom to pursue their own agenda. In a movie, the character's actions are bound by the decisions of the scriptwriter, whereas in a TRPG, they are not.

The phrase "plot", as used by me and others, does not mean exactly the same for TRPGs as for movies/books, yet the meanings are related in an intuitive way which helps one understand the meaning in the TRPG context.

The point is, that SOME DMs try to make their TRPG to resemble a book or movie, and expects/demands/forces the characters (portrayed by the players) to adhere to their vision of a plot. This is completely unnecessary for a TRPG, which is why we try to give this type of DMing a name, classify the activity and otherwise create useful concepts. Since SOME players actually like the game to be this way, we can't simply call it badwrongfun and be done with it, we need more neutral terms.

From what has been posted, it seems everyone is stuck on Linear = Railroad. They don't say that 'R" word, they just describe a game exactly like a railroad game.

Because a "railroad" has negative connotations. And, unlike you, we try to be neutral in our classification. So, we take a Railroad game and call it "linear", as it sounds more neutral. This means that those people who actually enjoy it won't feel patronized or in other ways frowned upon.

Claiming that every activity you simply don't enjoy yourself is bad isn't going to do much for constructive discussion. Not to mention have zero academic merit.

Lorsa

2018-03-28, 07:58 AM

???

I use good and bad and such terms in the way most of the world does, except the urban elite areas of a couple places. Black Panther was a good movie. All the regular people have no problem agreeing that is was a good movie, even if they did not like it personally. The regular people can objectively say and accept something ''is'' good(or bad).

But then there are the other people that can't handle good or bad....

Why was it a good movie? On which scale do you measure movies? What premise do you use to determine this?

If a movie is simply "good" based on "did Darth Ultron enjoy it", then you are attempting to make your own subjective view into objective reality, and we can simply dismiss this opinion right away.

If a movie is "good" based on some other metric, then define and explain this metric. Was Black Panther good because it featured a predominantly black-skinned cast? That is a premise that needs the context that Hollywood movies have historically been very poor at this, and the understanding of the racism that has plagued the western world (and includes the value that racism is bad). There are other metrics on which one could judge the quality of a movie, but those need to be defined, explained and hold up to scrutiny.

You do NOT use "good" and "bad" the way "most people" does it. You use it as someone who fails to understand the difference between a subjective and an objective measure.

Florian

2018-03-28, 08:07 AM

I don't feel like you're really playing an RPG at all if you aren't at least using all the bits listed, but it's a really weird concept to put them into boxes in this manner.

Especially since I always see them overlap in my games.

As I said, the three parts are mandatory and form a triangle (therefore they can´t have a weight of zero or one hundred.). Overlap is natural, it´s more about the question whether it is "friendly" or "hostile" overlap, in addition, the more people participate, the broader the overlap will get, which is also natural, unless you play with clones of yourself (or are into Forge-type thinking).

Just some food for thought. Go back some pages and you'll find two things: I mentioned that I try to incorporate system-specific things in my sandbox design, Quertus mentioned that his style is using scry-n-fry to get rid of a dragon and go on to the really interesting things.

Now resolving that depends on what exactly were talking about. Pathfinder is very Combat as Sports oriented and the CR system more or less works when you know how to handle it. Knowing that, the minimum encounter size at my table is not 2d12 orcs/1 dragon, but rather something that has at least 4 equal CR encounters as part of it. In D&D 4E, it would be at least one "Delve". We, or rather me as gm, could find a plausible workaround by having that dragon use Anticipate Teleport and Redirect Teleport/the Teleport Tactician feat as a "legit" means to "bridge" our styles, by being open about it also showcasing that I, as gm, don't devalue choices by pure whimsy, but ultimately, we have to come to terms that we understand the game differently.

(And yes, that is what theory is actually for)

Koo Rehtorb

2018-03-28, 08:22 AM

Because a "railroad" has negative connotations. And, unlike you, we try to be neutral in our classification. So, we take a Railroad game and call it "linear", as it sounds more neutral. This means that those people who actually enjoy it won't feel patronized or in other ways frowned upon.

A railroad is a linear game which the players did not consent to.

Quertus

2018-03-28, 09:51 AM

Saying that "we can't use these terms because we can't have an RPG that isn't a balance of all three" comes across to me like saying we can't use the ideal gas law because you can't have a gas that lacks any of the gas law's variables.

Lemme start here. Solid / liquid / gas, as a distinction, just is. And that's fine. But it really doesn't tell us much about matter if we're trying to determine what's poisonous.

So, how does "toy/play/game" stand up? Well,

Quertus: Toy. Prefers focusing on his characters, likes to create his scenarios for himself.

I'm a war gamer at heart. I care about rules and consistency and predictability. I enjoy "fiddly bits" and "tables of doom". So that's... Which piece?

What I like about RPGs over war games, though, is that they have an additional component, the role-playing of a character. That's "toy"? Do war games have a "toy" component?

"likes to create his scenarios for himself"? Um, what? No, I don't want narrative control as a player. (Unless I have explicitly bought in to a Linear module,) I want to be able to choose both my goal, and my path to that goal, Sandbox style. I want to succeed or fail on my own merits, not because of the "needs of the story". That's... Which piece?

My favorite part of the game is Exploration. I most enjoy learning about a foreign world, and seeing what I can build with it. Oooh, you've got cool floaty rocks? How big? Do they run off gravity, or magnetism, or space, or...? Is it a property of the rocks, or the area, out both? Do I need to develop spells to modify rocks, or an area, or both, to use this phenomenon to create a floating castle? With floating stone status? Or flying stone armor? Or a floating stone golem? What else can I do with this series of spells? That's... Which piece?

I like rolling physical dice. I enjoy minis, but don't require them. I like physical books. That's which piece?

I enjoy exploring human psychology, using my character as a vehicle to explore alien mindsets. That's which piece?

I dislike complex character creation. I'd almost be happy writing, "Quertus, Wizard" on my character sheet, and being done. That's disliking which piece?

I love rules lawyering. Nothings better than spending three hours getting a rule right. That's a session where we actually accomplished something. That's which piece?

I hate fluff in my rules books. That's hating which piece?

I hate railroads, "the needs of the story", GMs fudging dice, narrative causality. That's hating which piece(s)?

I find game balance to be a detriment to fun, both directly and indirectly. That's... What relation to which piece?

I find the d20 system BAB vastly superior to THAC0. That's what relation to which piece?

I enjoy gamable systems, and finding obscure interactions of various components (2e Wild Mages can be Lawful? WTF?). Which piece is that?

I enjoy undead, mounts, minions. Which piece is that?

I enjoy kingdom management, all the stuff that usually only happens after the game is "over". Which piece is that?

I enjoy spell research, item creation, making things. Which piece is that?

I realize that the gods are ****, and desire to remove or replace them whenever possible. Which piece is that?

I care about how usable the character sheet is; aesthetics take a distant second. Which piece is that?

I couldn't care less for mood music. Which piece is that?

I will freely alternate between speaking in character or giving the gist. What relation to which piece is this?

I "grew up" believing that role-playing was the greatest good, metagaming was the worst possible evil, and that "my guy" was a failure of session 0. What relation to which piece(s) is that?

I believe in treating players like adults, and telling them up front what I want from them. Most people's "problem player"? I'm all like, "I know that guy. He's not so bad.". What relation to which piece is that?

I believe in playing within the power level range of the group, and the module. Anywhere from "we easily curb stomp most everything" to "we struggle to find any way to deal with most everything". Playing near those extremes make for the most memorable characters / parties. Which piece is that?

I hate the CaS concept of "proper level of challenge". That's hating which piece?

I hate role-playing rules, as they are invariably inferior to the human mind. That's hating which piece?

-----

I have plenty of words to describe myself as a gamer. How do "toy/play/game" stand up?

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-28, 09:52 AM

Segev

2018-03-28, 10:31 AM

I guess that is the problem: you and ''everyone'' only have this very narrow definition for this one word. Other words you can agree have many meanings and definitions...but you don't like this word is it's ''always wrong''. Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carol's works is not a role model to which to aspire. Making words mean whatever you want, and then expecting everybody else to smurf out their meanings is generally going to lead to poor communication. Words have specific meanings in order to facilitate transmitting that meaning to others. They lack other meanings in order to reduce ambiguity.

But your definition is things must be in a line OR branch out OR do something else...as long as A leads to B?

I really don't get the wacky idea that the game MUST be: Start at A------> ''Oh-My-Gosh-The-Most-amazing-thing-that- ever-happened-ever-that-on-one-ever-saw-coming-WOW!" Yes, then no. Yes, my definition of "linear" requires that things be laid out in a line - even if it has some amount of branching - to define the path forward. A leads to B leads to C, and the GM knows this before the game ever starts.

No, to your second paragraph in this quote, to the point that I am not even sure how to parse it other than "Darth Ultron is probably mischaracterizing something in order to ignore its point and belittle it." I can't tell what, precisely, it's supposed to tie to, though, so your mischaracterization has gone far enough off-base that I can't even be sure what you're trying to substitute that straw man for.

Oh, so you mean REAL Real Life non-Linear reality going by the REAL definition of Linear and NOT the wacky RPG ''whatever'' meanings of the word. Like how, for example, Comic Books are not always Linear(again, by the normal word definition).Discussing linearity of comic books is not constructive, here, because by the time we consume them as an audience, they're already done. The author has written them. It's less comparable to a game and more comparable to somebody telling you about their game session after it's already over.

Well, I do this in my long running TRPGs all the time. For example, during the game, the group stops in the city of HighPoint, rests for a week, then continues the adventure: actual game time roughly five minutes. Sarah, wants her character to visit the Mages Guild of the city, but I will never do that during the group game. Instead I will run a solo game with Sarah by chat, post, e-mail or table top, where he character visits the guild. Very often this will take weeks. And the group game keeps rolling on every week too. But Sarah's characters solo adventure only fills that week of game time, though the game time and the solo time are way, way, way, way off. And like if her character say looses her spell book in ''the past'' of the solo adventure, she would also ''suddenly'' loose it during the normal weekly game(though really more often I do something wacky...and dangerous).You've misunderstood, but this is still good progress, because I can sense genuine attempt to understand and link to my meaning here! Thank you!

Stopping in HighPoint for a week doesn't change the linearity of the game - neither making it more linear, nor less. The linearity lies not in whether or not the players can stop in Scene F for 10 minutes or 10 weeks, but in whether leaving Scene F requires that they move on to already-defined Scene G. If they can move on to any of Scenes G-P, it's decidedly less linear. It's decidedly non-linear if there's a lack of definite "They will move on to Scene Q after one or more of Scenes G-P," and instead it is impossible to tell where they'll go after the next scene until they're making their choices in said next scene. (Being able to make some guesses is not the same as knowing.)

There's a whole spectrum, here, of linearity, and mixing it up a bit can be very helpful. Linearity isn't necessarily bad.

But your description above is more about letting players pause and take some downtime to do solo side-quests/adventures/encounters than about linearity or nonlinearity.

I mean, even *I* have to accept that the word literally is not used literally anymore. No matter how much it pains me.Nope. I refuse to let this one go, because it literally (using the word correctly, here) makes the word "literally" have no meaning. It's less meaningful than "smurf," as used by the little blue cartoons, because they won't use it in ambiguous contexts that can mean two entirely opposite things depending on which opposed definition of "literally" is being used.

I mean, let's use a slightly out-there example: "He's literally slaughtering her!" Oh, my word! Should we rush in there and stop him? Somebody, call the police! Or...is that saying that he's practically slaughtering her at whatever competition they're having, but that there's not actually any bloody death occurring?

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-28, 11:03 AM

Nope. I refuse to let this one go, because it literally (using the word correctly, here) makes the word "literally" have no meaning. It's less meaningful than "smurf," as used by the little blue cartoons, because they won't use it in ambiguous contexts that can mean two entirely opposite things depending on which opposed definition of "literally" is being used.

I mean, let's use a slightly out-there example: "He's literally slaughtering her!" Oh, my word! Should we rush in there and stop him? Somebody, call the police! Or...is that saying that he's practically slaughtering her at whatever competition they're having, but that there's not actually any bloody death occurring?

If the purpose of language is communication, then changes which make it more ambiguous and vague and self-contradictory violate that purpose.

Pleh

2018-03-28, 11:07 AM

Lemme start here. Solid / liquid / gas, as a distinction, just is. And that's fine. But it really doesn't tell us much about matter if we're trying to determine what's poisonous.

I don't see your point, mostly because I don't see what you're trying to say.

Are you conceding my point about our divisions of matter, or arguing against it?

As for poison, where did that come from? If you're arguing that some divisions aren't subjective because some are objectively factual, then I'll easily refute that argument as well. Even our concept of "poison" is a bit flexible, as we can nitpick the subject of recreational drugs and debate whether they should classify as poisons. Oxygen can get you high if inhaled in a sufficiently pure state. Water can harm you by depleting your mineral supply.

All definitions are arbitrarily placed. The better definitions have really good justifications. Defining a snake's venom as more hazardous to have in your bloodstream than drinking water is pretty strongly justified, but no less arbitrary.

I'm a war gamer at heart. I care about rules and consistency and predictability. I enjoy "fiddly bits" and "tables of doom". So that's... Which piece?

Based on how it was described to me,
Mechanics tend to fall under "game"

What I like about RPGs over war games, though, is that they have an additional component, the role-playing of a character. That's "toy"? Do war games have a "toy" component?

Well, yes, often the personalized character is considered the "toy," but especially when you paint the miniature by hand, write paragraphs about their backstory and/or appearance, and otherwise focus the fun on exploring the character rather than their surroundings.

War games tend to use pawns rather than unique heroes, so the "toy" element tends to be downplayed in favor of "game" and "play".

In the video game, "Impossible Creatures" you create an army comprised of nine different hybrid animal monsters. The act of playing with the different combinations is "toying", the act of building a base, gathering resources, then generating your monsters is "playing", and strategizing to attack enemy bases and steal their resources is "gaming".

"likes to create his scenarios for himself"? Um, what? No, I don't want narrative control as a player. (Unless I have explicitly bought in to a Linear module,) I want to be able to choose both my goal, and my path to that goal, Sandbox style. I want to succeed or fail on my own merits, not because of the "needs of the story". That's... Which piece?

Distinguishing narrative control from picking objectives and passing or failing based on merit seems to fall under "gaming" as the fun is derived from making mechanical choices and having them resolved fairly.

My favorite part of the game is Exploration. I most enjoy learning about a foreign world, and seeing what I can build with it. Oooh, you've got cool floaty rocks? How big? Do they run off gravity, or magnetism, or space, or...? Is it a property of the rocks, or the area, out both? Do I need to develop spells to modify rocks, or an area, or both, to use this phenomenon to create a floating castle? With floating stone status? Or flying stone armor? Or a floating stone golem? What else can I do with this series of spells? That's... Which piece?

Sounds like "toy." You have activity centered on an object: floating rocks. If the subject doesn't matter (you like exploring anything), then it's "play" because you like the activity of exploration itself.

I like rolling physical dice. I enjoy minis, but don't require them.

Toys.

I like physical books. That's which piece?

Depends on how you're using them. If it's just a rules reference, it's game material. If it's a prop on the map, toy. If you're throwing it at other people, improvised thrown weapon.

I enjoy exploring human psychology, using my character as a vehicle to explore alien mindsets. That's which piece?

Entertainment through activity is "play" unless you're focused on one very specific mindset you explore all the time, where it might be a "toy." Are you enjoying the subject or the process of analysis more?

I dislike complex character creation. I'd almost be happy writing, "Quertus, Wizard" on my character sheet, and being done. That's disliking which piece?

Complex character creation should probably fall under "toy" and "game" somewhere. You like to "play" your characters rather than engineer them to win games or accessorize them to perfectly match a mental image.

I love rules lawyering. Nothings better than spending three hours getting a rule right. That's a session where we actually accomplished something. That's which piece?

I think solidly "game." You get the most fun from mastering the rules to achieve success at the reasonable risk of failure.

I hate fluff in my rules books. That's hating which piece?

Fluff tends to live somewhere between "toy" and "play". People who like fluff tend to like to see their dreams come to life more than overcoming a set of hurdles created by rules ("gaming").

I hate railroads, "the needs of the story", GMs fudging dice, narrative causality. That's hating which piece(s)?

Looks less like hating anything specific and rather just loving "game" to such an extent as to deride everything that gets in the way.

I find game balance to be a detriment to fun, both directly and indirectly. That's... What relation to which piece?

You need to be more specific. Balance between PCs? Balance between Party and Encounters? Both? Neither?

I find the d20 system BAB vastly superior to THAC0. That's what relation to which piece?

I'm not familiar enough with THAC0 to comment here.

I enjoy gamable systems, and finding obscure interactions of various components (2e Wild Mages can be Lawful? WTF?). Which piece is that?

Answer's in the title: "game."

I enjoy undead, mounts, minions. Which piece is that?

Number 5 needs input.

What do you enjoy about them? The flavor/themes? Or their mechanical structure? All of the above? None of the above?

I enjoy kingdom management, all the stuff that usually only happens after the game is "over". Which piece is that?

It depends. It can be a "toy" in the sense that the kingdom is a special focal point that everything revolves around, or "play" in the sense that you'd be happy managing any kingdom (and that there's maybe not anything special about this one), or "game" in the sense that you might be working against a ruleset that could destroy or confiscate your kingdom if you make errors in management.

I enjoy spell research, item creation, making things. Which piece is that?

Again, it depends on if what you're making is special to you (toy), the process is fun regardless the outcome (play), or only the utility of the product matters (game). Remember these traits are not exclusive and there can be degrees of each.

I realize that the gods are ****, and desire to remove or replace them whenever possible. Which piece is that?

I think it would depend on their roles in the setting. If they're just an endgame boss, then "game." If the point of the campaign is to become godslayers, seems like it would be "play." If it's more about watching this marvelous character overcome all odds and/or fall into madness chasing the impossible, probably "toy."

I care about how usable the character sheet is; aesthetics take a distant second. Which piece is that?

Given the trend so far, probably "game" for you, but it depends on what you want to use it for. Players that are heavy into toying with characters might want a minimalist sheet so they can customize the aesthetic.

I couldn't care less for mood music. Which piece is that?

Immersion tactics probably fall most heavily under "play."

I will freely alternate between speaking in character or giving the gist. What relation to which piece is this?

Another aspect of immersion, which is probably most valuable to "play" unless the system being used makes social interaction and talking in character important to the "game" by affecting DCs or other modifiers.

I "grew up" believing that role-playing was the greatest good, metagaming was the worst possible evil, and that "my guy" was a failure of session 0. What relation to which piece(s) is that?

I believe in treating players like adults, and telling them up front what I want from them. Most people's "problem player"? I'm all like, "I know that guy. He's not so bad.". What relation to which piece is that?

I don't believe the theory really applies to social interraction outside the game. These values you express are more about the nature of getting along with people, not how you derive fun from games. It's essential to all forms equally on a fundamental level. N/A

I believe in playing within the power level range of the group, and the module. Anywhere from "we easily curb stomp most everything" to "we struggle to find any way to deal with most everything". Playing near those extremes make for the most memorable characters / parties. Which piece is that?

Seems like Game, based on your other examples, but it does overlap into Play as well.

I hate the CaS concept of "proper level of challenge". That's hating which piece?

I think you have toys, games, and play in both CaS and CaW, though CaS will trend towards more Toys, less Game (because no one can have fun breaking other people's treasured toys unless you are a toxic griefer) while CaW will have more Game, less Toys (losing things precious to you is part of the drama of war, so players tend to not get too attached to characters).

I hate role-playing rules, as they are invariably inferior to the human mind. That's hating which piece?

As much as you like Games, you hate using them for Social encounters and prefer to use direct Play.

Seems pretty straight forward.

Edit: final thoughts. It seems your style of play emphasizes the "game," but especially at large narrative scale (managing kingdoms, slaying gods, creating magic). You prefer Play at small scale narrative because the Game rules don't suit you on that scale, which is also why you dislike Gamified character creation. You choose Play to speed up the process of advancing quickly to the large scale control you really are after. If you have much interest in Toys, they're real world tools for the Game and maybe a few elements you craft into your game (like making magic spells/items)

Quertus

2018-03-28, 11:56 AM

I don't see your point, mostly because I don't see what you're trying to say.

Are you conceding my point about our divisions of matter, or arguing against it?

As for poison, where did that come from? If you're arguing that some divisions aren't subjective because some are objectively factual, then I'll easily refute that argument as well. Even our concept of "poison" is a bit flexible, as we can nitpick the subject of recreational drugs and debate whether they should classify as poisons. Oxygen can get you high if inhaled in a sufficiently pure state. Water can harm you by depleting your mineral supply.

All definitions are arbitrarily placed. The better definitions have really good justifications. Defining a snake's venom as more hazardous to have in your bloodstream than drinking water is pretty strongly justified, but no less arbitrary.

Some have claimed that the division of play/game/toy is meaningless to describing their game experience. I am simply stating that this is possible, as solid/liquid/gas seems rather meaningless to me in discussing what matter is poisonous.

I am decidedly not contending that divisions are irrelevant; rather, that which divisions we focus on matters.

Edit: final thoughts. It seems your style of play emphasizes the "game," but especially at large narrative scale (managing kingdoms, slaying gods, creating magic). You prefer Play at small scale narrative because the Game rules don't suit you on that scale, which is also why you dislike Gamified character creation. You choose Play to speed up the process of advancing quickly to the large scale control you really are after. If you have much interest in Toys, they're real world tools for the Game and maybe a few elements you craft into your game (like making magic spells/items)

So, you think, from what you've seen of my knowledge of my play style, that I could... what... communicate that more efficiently by saying that I enjoy "game" at large narrative scale, and "play" at small narrative scale? (and that I will randomly get obsessively focused on certain random Toys within the game?) That this is / would be the value of the TPG system, for me?

Pleh

2018-03-28, 12:09 PM

So, you think, from what you've seen of my knowledge of my play style, that I could... what... communicate that more efficiently by saying that I enjoy "game" at large narrative scale, and "play" at small narrative scale? (and that I will randomly get obsessively focused on certain random Toys within the game?) That this is / would be the value of the TPG system, for me?

Well, first more people have to adopt the framing method to understand what you mean by it, but generally, yes, I believe it should work in principle.

Do you disagree?

Lorsa

2018-03-28, 12:26 PM

Pleh

2018-03-28, 03:42 PM

What about the phrase "gameplay" as used in, for example, video games?

It seems as though that word describes what goes on at a table, whereas the "game system" is the collection of rules. The singular phrase "game" seems sort of ambiguous to me if one wants to point to something specific regarding RPGs.

Basically, we usually say "we play roleplaying games", so the 'play' and 'game' part are interconnected, forming the 'gameplay'. Trying to single them out, as anything other than pointing out the specific rules system, seems like it would require a ton more questions of the kind Quertus asked in order to figure it out.

We have the terms, but they aren't as clearly defined.

"Gameplay" is intentionally vague because it's meant for a broader category (to answer the question, it would probably fall under "play" in this framing method). It's unfortunate that we don't have more words less directly related to each other to use as labels, but if we start making up unrelated names like Quantum Mechanics did for quark charges, the names wouldn't feel very descriptive.

Toy is an object and works as a label for games that prioritize fun involving a specific thing.

Play is a verb and works as a label for games that prioritize some kind of activity.

Game is an abstract concept and works as a label for games that prioritize the strategic interchange of meaningful choices to produce meaningful outcomes of contest.

Yes, most games will have elements of each, but also most will push one of the three elements a little more strongly.

If we can produce better labels (more efficient communication), that only helps convey the principles, which appear to be sound.

Quertus

2018-03-28, 04:54 PM

Quertus mentioned that his style is using scry-n-fry to get rid of a dragon and go on to the really interesting things.

Did I? :smallconfused: I mean, I don't disagree with the general sentiment of being efficient to get to the interesting parts, I just don't remember that specific example, or calling it my style. Darn senility.

Well, first more people have to adopt the framing method to understand what you mean by it, but generally, yes, I believe it should work in principle.

Do you disagree?

Well, I don't understand it well enough to either agree or disagree (honestly, I haven't been secretly replaced with Foldier's Crystals - I may be highly opinionated, but I don't always die on every hill).

However, if I go with my gut, I suppose my current guess is that it has potential for high-level abstraction, but is more limited at discussing fine detail than the more extensive gaming vocabulary that I have already developed. That it could augment my existing vocabulary, for discussing specific issues and/or specific levels of abstraction, but that it does not replace my existing vocabulary.

It seems to me efficient for communicating what I can already say, but at a higher level of abstraction. Now, what I still don't have an intuition for is whether it a) has more, less, or the same amount of "noise" as my existing vocabulary (see this (and most every other DU) thread); b) whether it allows me to say anything that I can't already say.

Also, if it catches on, I expect to hear Max screaming about people trying to inaccurately put him in a TPG box, assuming that just because he likes one aspect of one of them, he must therefore love / hate this other thing.

Toy is an object and works as a label for games that prioritize fun involving a specific thing.

Play is a verb and works as a label for games that prioritize some kind of activity.

Game is an abstract concept and works as a label for games that prioritize the strategic interchange of meaningful choices to produce meaningful outcomes of contest.

Yes, most games will have elements of each, but also most will push one of the three elements a little more strongly.

If we can produce better labels (more efficient communication), that only helps convey the principles, which appear to be sound.

So, let's say people enjoy diving cars. Is the TPG designation useful in discussing what people like there?

People like food. Would TPG terms help culinary discussions?

If we move to a less "sensitive" topic, would we be able to see the value in investing in an understanding of these terms?

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-28, 05:25 PM

Did I? :smallconfused: I mean, I don't disagree with the general sentiment of being efficient to get to the interesting parts, I just don't remember that specific example, or calling it my style. Darn senility.

Well, I don't understand it well enough to either agree or disagree (honestly, I haven't been secretly replaced with Foldier's Crystals - I may be highly opinionated, but I don't always die on every hill).

However, if I go with my gut, I suppose my current guess is that it has potential for high-level abstraction, but is more limited at discussing fine detail than the more extensive gaming vocabulary that I have already developed. That it could augment my existing vocabulary, for discussing specific issues and/or specific levels of abstraction, but that it does not replace my existing vocabulary.

It seems to me efficient for communicating what I can already say, but at a higher level of abstraction. Now, what I still don't have an intuition for is whether it a) has more, less, or the same amount of "noise" as my existing vocabulary (see this (and most every other DU) thread); b) whether it allows me to say anything that I can't already say.

Also, if it catches on, I expect to hear Max screaming about people trying to inaccurately put him in a TPG box, assuming that just because he likes one aspect of one of them, he must therefore love / hate this other thing.

So, let's say people enjoy diving cars. Is the TPG designation useful in discussing what people like there?

People like food. Would TPG terms help culinary discussions?

If we move to a less "sensitive" topic, would we be able to see the value in investing in an understanding of these terms?

It's a bit off even if one literally looks at actual "toys" and "play" and "games". The same item that's often called a "toy" can be picked up and used across those three "levels of engagement" fluidly and freely and simultaneously, by a child interacting with other children.

Quertus

2018-03-28, 07:50 PM

It's a bit off even if one literally looks at actual "toys" and "play" and "games". The same item that's often called a "toy" can be picked up and used across those three "levels of engagement" fluidly and freely and simultaneously, by a child interacting with other children.

Ok, lemme do my best to play devil's advocate. People can view Marbles with more of a focus on winning the game, or on collecting certain specific marbles. This will affect how they approach the game, and the choices that they make (ie, trying to collect more marbles vs trying to get that one particular marble).

This sounds a bit like focusing on the "toy" vs "game" aspects to me (although I'm probably still wrong on TPG theory).

What I haven't quite wrapped my head around yet is whether I can really say anything meaningful about the game under TPG theory that I couldn't already say, or say something meaningful more efficiently.

And, yes, much like "retarded", I agree that "toy" (and "barbie") have some negative connotations built in, making TPG destinations inherently really need to shine at providing clarity and meaning to be worth adoption.

I haven't seen that yet.

PhoenixPhyre

2018-03-28, 07:55 PM

What I haven't quite wrapped my head around yet is whether I can really say anything meaningful about the game under TPG theory that I couldn't already say, or say something meaningful more efficiently.

I agree. I understand the distinction (I think), but I'm struggling to find it useful.

That speaks to one of the hard problems: Naming things. Names are hard. Meaningful, useful names are even worse. And bad names obscure as much as they illuminate.

Pleh

2018-03-28, 08:58 PM

Darth Ultron

2018-03-28, 09:30 PM

I understand perfectly that they are different. This is why I can say "a TRPG does not need a plot". Because, unlike a tv show/movie, the characters have freedom to pursue their own agenda. In a movie, the character's actions are bound by the decisions of the scriptwriter, whereas in a TRPG, they are not.

Yes, again, a TRPG does not need a plot: you can have a ton of fun playing in the random mess. But an Adventure needs a plot.

The point is, that SOME DMs try to make their TRPG to resemble a book or movie, and expects/demands/forces the characters (portrayed by the players) to adhere to their vision of a plot. This is completely unnecessary for a TRPG, which is why we try to give this type of DMing a name, classify the activity and otherwise create useful concepts. Since SOME players actually like the game to be this way, we can't simply call it badwrongfun and be done with it, we need more neutral terms.

Yes, but we don't change the definition of a word based on some peoples actions. Some athletes cheat to win games, but we don't change the definition of athlete to ''ONLY cheaters". You only point out the bad behavior.

Claiming that every activity you simply don't enjoy yourself is bad isn't going to do much for constructive discussion. Not to mention have zero academic merit.

There is a huge difference between objective good and bad, and someones view of good and bad.

You do NOT use "good" and "bad" the way "most people" does it. You use it as someone who fails to understand the difference between a subjective and an objective measure.

I would say this is just your bias: you think everything I type is wrong; so when you read something of mine your just looking for how wrong it is.

No, to your second paragraph in this quote,

Well, a normal game..a linear game...has the normal linear reality things in it like A Character opens door--->B Character walks through open doorway. So, your version of a game HAS to be different...or it's the same. So you have to have A Character opens door---> Z dogs and cats live together.

Some have claimed that the division of play/game/toy is meaningless to describing their game experience. I am simply stating that this is possible, as solid/liquid/gas seems rather meaningless to me in discussing what matter is poisonous.

I don't like them either.

JNAProductions

2018-03-28, 09:36 PM

By your definition of linear, any game is linear, regardless of how much plot it has. Hell, by your definition of linear, PC A opens door -> Cats and dogs are playing IS linear. You can, after all, draw a straight line through the chain of events. No it doesn't make sense, but there's a line!

If, on the other hand, you use the COMMONLY ACCEPTED DEFINITION of linearity (in the context of a TTRPG), you'd understand that this:

Players go to the king, get ordered to kill a dragon, fight to Mount Doom, engage the dragon in the cauldera, and triumph over it.

Is linear, this:

Players go to the king, get ordered to kill the dragon, can either search out the scroll to teleport to Mount Doom or travel there on foot, can engage the dragon in any of several of its mountain lairs, and probably triumph.

Is mostly linear, and this:

There is a kingdom that's having dragon problems. The dragon lives on Mount Doom.

Is a sandbox. (Well, part of one.)

You can have the same events happen in each one, but there's still a difference, even if it's largely in potential.

Then again, you've had the definition of sandbox explained to you, repeatedly, and either never learned it or willfully ignored it, so doubt this will do anything.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-28, 10:45 PM

Then again, you've had the definition of sandbox explained to you, repeatedly, and either never learned it or willfully ignored it, so doubt this will do anything.

But see your not even giving good examples or comparing the same things.

Both your ''Linear'' examples are of characters going on an adventure. Though, oddly yet again, your examples like many others are so bias and negative as they are always depicting the poor players being forced to do something.

And your sandbox example is just ''there is a dragon''. And then NOTHING. In your sandbox example, the players don't even play the game?

Like ok, lets take the Dragon Adventure.

So the back ground for the adventure is simple: a young dragon has moved into the area and is making a claim..

So starting from the point where two groups have both decided to ''do'' something about the dragon(the normal linear game group only took like 30 seconds after they are told about the dragon to say ''oh, a dragon, we will deal with it'' while the so called sandbox group spent 15 hours of real time doing the meaningless wander and explore and do pointless things...and then, finally, eventually have said ''oh, a dragon, lets deal with it")

So, keeping with the end goal of they want to ''do'' something about the dragon, the Normal Linear Game players CAN UTTERLY AT LEAST TRY TO DO ANYTHING THEY WANT to get to the end goal. PERIOD! (within the restrictions of the game, rules, setting and limits and capabilities of their characters.)

So, for just a couple of many examples the players might try to go to the dragons lair, sneak inside, and try to attack the dragon when sleeping. OR they might just go for a full front assault. OR maybe they want to go try an join with the dragon and rule the world with it. And anything done must be linear....if the characters want to (try) and bribe the dragon---->the characters must have treasure to bribe the dragon with--->must get treasure somehow--->characters decide to rob the royal treasure.

Now, there is the so called sandbox game...and like the normal game the players have decided to ''do'' something about the dragon. AND it MUST be something that is different then the normal linear game......so, GO, and tell me how this game is:

theCourier

2018-03-28, 11:23 PM

But see your not even giving good examples or comparing the same things.

Both your ''Linear'' examples are of characters going on an adventure. Though, oddly yet again, your examples like many others are so bias and negative as they are always depicting the poor players being forced to do something.

And your sandbox example is just ''there is a dragon''. And then NOTHING. In your sandbox example, the players don't even play the game?

Like ok, lets take the Dragon Adventure.

So the back ground for the adventure is simple: a young dragon has moved into the area and is making a claim..

So starting from the point where two groups have both decided to ''do'' something about the dragon(the normal linear game group only took like 30 seconds after they are told about the dragon to say ''oh, a dragon, we will deal with it'' while the so called sandbox group spent 15 hours of real time doing the meaningless wander and explore and do pointless things...and then, finally, eventually have said ''oh, a dragon, lets deal with it")

So, keeping with the end goal of they want to ''do'' something about the dragon, the Normal Linear Game players CAN UTTERLY AT LEAST TRY TO DO ANYTHING THEY WANT to get to the end goal. PERIOD! (within the restrictions of the game, rules, setting and limits and capabilities of their characters.)

So, for just a couple of many examples the players might try to go to the dragons lair, sneak inside, and try to attack the dragon when sleeping. OR they might just go for a full front assault. OR maybe they want to go try an join with the dragon and rule the world with it. And anything done must be linear....if the characters want to (try) and bribe the dragon---->the characters must have treasure to bribe the dragon with--->must get treasure somehow--->characters decide to rob the royal treasure.

Now, there is the so called sandbox game...and like the normal game the players have decided to ''do'' something about the dragon. AND it MUST be something that is different then the normal linear game......so, GO, and tell me how this game is:

Nowhere in the examples given to you was there ANY negative bias displayed. The poster just described three different scenarios in simple, laid-out terms. In fact, you seem to be the one that's assuming players are being "forced" to do anything. You do know that there's nothing wrong with linear games right? No one is saying that there is something wrong with them, so please stop assuming that.

In fact, you're the one who has an obvious bias against sandbox games. Just look at how you describe your examples. You describe the group you have a bias against as an "so called sandbox" group in order to discredit the idea of sandbox games, and you mention them performing "15 hours of real time doing the meaningless wander and explore and do pointless things" which just goes to show you view sandbox games in a negative light. You seem to look at them as time-wasting exercises in dilly-dallying, which makes me think you REALLY shouldn't go on and on and on about how linear games are being described in a negative light.

The 15 hours spent before fighting a dragon could be spent performing other important tasks, like tackling another plot thread or character arc in the game. The difference in the linear game is that fighting the dragon is the main focus, while in the sandbox game it's just one of many different plot threads that can be tackled at a point in time. This doesn't mean the dragon is nonexistent before the players decide to engage it, however. In a sandbox game, this might just mean that it exists, but is not actively plotting or acting against anyone. It might, however, choose to do so while the heroes are out and about adventuring either of its own volition or as a consequence to something that happens in the game world.

I really don't know how to make this clearer. Please, please don't say that I'm "painting linear games in a bad light" or something, when you're the one who already has their mind made up on how much of a waste of time sandbox games are. If that's the case, why even have this discussion? Aren't you supposed to go into a discussion on stuff like this with an open mind?

Florian

2018-03-29, 02:03 AM

Quertus

2018-03-29, 06:41 AM

Quertus, you claim to have a more sophisticated language for it.

Since we're being blunt, I have yet to see what alternative you're employing.

Maybe your more complicated framework has better nuance, but how can it be more effective communication if it isn't getting the idea across to others?

I think ALL the different frameworks so far have been lacking something. TPG at least is concise.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

On brevity: saying, "I want a sandbox", and expecting that to carry exactly the fully nuanced meaning you desire is, as this thread has shown, an unwise expectation. These are good words to start a conversation with, but generally need to be followed up with, effectively, defining the word. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but, for detailed specifications, it is a fail state.

When I gave a long list of my gaming preferences, I was pulling on a piece of my more extensive vocabulary. So, yes, you have seen it, even if you didn't recognize it.

My vocabulary, refined on this forum, includes terms and concepts like linear/sandbox/railroad, like metagaming, role-playing, and war game, terms from Angry's 8 Aesthetics, etc.

The as yet unanswered question is, what value does the TPG designation add in terms of my ability to communicate my gaming preferences meaningfully? Thus far, the closest I've come to an answer is, it may allow a high-level abstraction of my preferences more efficiently than my existing vocabulary. That's what I am hearing. But, in the interests of not straw manning, I am asking if that's what I'm supposed to be getting out of this.

Once I know that, I can then attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of the terms at conveying their intended meaning.

But, as I said, they'd better be **** good at it, given the pre-existing bias around the word "toy".

It´s actually better and more precise in the original german language, as it´s "Spiel", "Spielen" und "Spielzeug" because of the shared connection. Now what is also lacks with the shared word "Spielregeln" is ambiguity if "Spiel"/"rules for gaming" or "Spielen"/"rules for playing" is meant and needs added context, same with "Spielzeug", which could be translated into both, "stuff to game with" and "stuff to play with". My language doesn't differentiate between a Barbie doll and a deck of poker cards, which is why the word is largely free of bias, unlike possible toy. OTOH, "Spielen"/"play" is a highly biased thing.

I had feared that something had been lost in translation. When I hear "rules for gaming" vs "rules for playing", I hear RAW vs the gentleman's agreement. I hear how to play the game vs how to play the game / how to be a good player (in the GM-inclusive version of that word).

Darth Ultron

2018-03-29, 07:13 AM

Nowhere in the examples given to you was there ANY negative bias displayed. The poster just described three different scenarios in simple, laid-out terms. In fact, you seem to be the one that's assuming players are being "forced" to do anything. You do know that there's nothing wrong with linear games right? No one is saying that there is something wrong with them, so please stop assuming that.

Oh, maybe you should reread it:
Players go to the king, get ordered to kill the dragon, can either search out the scroll to teleport to Mount Doom or travel there on foot, can engage the dragon in any of several of its mountain lairs, and probably triumph

Gee note the highlighted word? How is that not using force?

In fact, you're the one who has an obvious bias against sandbox games. Just look at how you describe your examples. You describe the group you have a bias against as an "so called sandbox" group in order to discredit the idea of sandbox games, and you mention them performing "15 hours of real time doing the meaningless wander and explore and do pointless things" which just goes to show you view sandbox games in a negative light. You seem to look at them as time-wasting exercises in dilly-dallying, which makes me think you REALLY shouldn't go on and on and on about how linear games are being described in a negative light.

Again, lets look at the example:
Sandbox-There is a kingdom that's having dragon problems. The dragon lives on Mount Doom . Ok, note how this example, unlike the others has the players doing nothing. So, this is why I say the so called sandbox example here is of characters doing nothing: It's in the example. The other examples had adventures where the characters ''did'' something, so if you ''do'' something in the so called sandbox, why is it not in the example?

The 15 hours spent before fighting a dragon could be spent performing other important tasks, like tackling another plot thread or character arc in the game. The difference in the linear game is that fighting the dragon is the main focus, while in the sandbox game it's just one of many different plot threads that can be tackled at a point in time. This doesn't mean the dragon is nonexistent before the players decide to engage it, however. In a sandbox game, this might just mean that it exists, but is not actively plotting or acting against anyone. It might, however, choose to do so while the heroes are out and about adventuring either of its own volition or as a consequence to something that happens in the game world.

If the characters are not doing any sort of thing with any substance or meaning it's not important. Sure the player might think it's the most importing thing ever for their barbarian to eat a piece of cake for an hour of real time....but it's not to anyone else.

And mostly your talking about the aimless wander...and yes, you can play the game that way and just do pointless, meaningless stuff for hours. And AGAIN, I'm talking about the point when the players finally say ''ok, lets go something more substantive and go on a real adventure.''

In order for the game play to have any meaning and not be pointless it has to be part of an organized detailed linear framework that makes sense, or to put it simply: An Adventure.

And an Adventure is NOT only the super epic destroy the One Ring, the Giant Rats of Bob's Red Barn IS also an Adventure.

So like two DMs Adam and Zeno both make the Dragon Trouble Adventure. Adam's group, being good players, only take a couple seconds to decide ''lets go see about that dragon". Zeno's group, are the so-called sandbox type, so no matter what they will utterly ignore the DM's Adventure Plot Hook and either do meaningless and pointless things (''we have our characters go to the bar and drink--I'm gonna roll a charisma check to flirt!") OR they do a bit of a jerk move and pick their own mimi adventure and force the DM to run it(they refuse to go on the DM's badwrongfun adventure, but they demand the DM run any adventure they whine and cry about).

Quertus

2018-03-29, 07:56 AM

In order for the game play to have any meaning and not be pointless it has to be part of an organized detailed linear framework that makes sense, or to put it simply: An Adventure.

And an Adventure is NOT only the super epic destroy the One Ring, the Giant Rats of Bob's Red Barn IS also an Adventure.

So like two DMs Adam and Zeno both make the Dragon Trouble Adventure. Adam's group, being good players, only take a couple seconds to decide ''lets go see about that dragon". Zeno's group, are the so-called sandbox type, so no matter what they will utterly ignore the DM's Adventure Plot Hook and either do meaningless and pointless things (''we have our characters go to the bar and drink--I'm gonna roll a charisma check to flirt!") OR they do a bit of a jerk move and pick their own mimi adventure and force the DM to run it(they refuse to go on the DM's badwrongfun adventure, but they demand the DM run any adventure they whine and cry about).

No. So many things wrong with this.

Zeno, being a good sandbox GM, does not make an Adventure. He creates content.

Content is required to provide context for the characters; an Adventure is not.

While Adams group has exactly the same floor and ceiling - go on the Dragon Trouble Adventure, Zeno's group has a much lower floor (drink and flirt), yes, but a much higher ceiling (take over the world, slay the gods, invent Food Bar 8.0, whatever). The sky players' imagination's the limit.

Surely, you're not contending that the Wizard, with its much lower floor and much higher ceiling, is pointless, are you?

And Zeno, being a good sandbox GM, has, by declaring his game a sandbox, agreed to run the PCs through his content however they want to go, rather than whining and crying about how the players are playing with his toys "wrong".

Pleh

2018-03-29, 08:20 AM

Quertus

2018-03-29, 09:37 AM

I view those terms (like metagaming or railroad) as rather universal to the discussion and I never saw TPG to be replacing or superceding such concepts. Rather they supplement existing language.

What's useful about it? It's another tool that functions differently, helping us tackle problems from yet another angle.

The way I see it, a group of players asking for a hacknslash dungeoncrawl is communicating what they want. Saying they want to keep the setup and characters standard and simple to focus on the classic experience (play major with a game minor), they are communicating why they want it.

This helps the DM understand they aren't looking for a bunch of unique magic items to make their characters feel special (toy) and they aren't pursuing meta enhanced specialized challenges to test their system mastery (game). They want to reduce all factors that inhibit the openness to simply Play the game, so they want to rely on the published content as much as possible.

Another group can say they want a Sandbox (what) so their highly specialized and unique characters can dominate the narrative (why). These characters are Toys, but whether they are optimized to winning them game (high crunch) or telling a compelling narrative (high fluff) will tell if they are merely toys or if they are Game-Toy hybrids where the only fun to the Toy is it's usefulness in the Game.

All these things help players understand why the other person is playing to enhance participationism. If you know people have fluff based Toys, the Game will eat them alive and possibly ruin their fun, so you scale down the Game for them. But if their Toy is supposed to be highly Game Functional and you keep rigging the game into or out of their favor, they can't truly get that satisfaction they are looking for of having built a useful tool (unless you stoop to illusionism, which I abhor personally because it provides a counterfeit to the experience they thought they were getting).

Edit: it works for DMs, too. Saying, "I want to run a horror game" tells players that the game will be balanced against them to accomodate a particular style of Play that will supercede Toys and Game. It becomes a Toy-Play hybrid if it happens in a haunted house where exploring the hidden rooms is half the fun.

Ok, now you're talking my language! :smallsmile:

First things first: if I say that I'm delivering, say, arsenic, that means I'm using a liquid (right?). But that doesn't make Solid/Liquid/Gas particularly useful for evaluating how poisonous something is.

So, just because you can map something back to TGP terms, doesn't inherently make TPG useful.

However.

You give an example of what vs why, and at least strongly imply that TPG lines up with those words almost definitionally. So, let's explore that.

When I described words as good conversation starters, I was poorly communicating something similar. That you need to hit things from multiple directions to truly communicate.

It sounds to me like you are saying that this can be accomplished by saying you want a "hacknslash dungeoncrawl with the setup and characters standard and simple to focus on the classic experience". Or they could say that they want a hacknslash dungeoncrawl with play major with a game minor.

So, if someone enjoys book diving, and comes in with their special snowflake (toy), can we tell how that will turn out? It seems someone expecting focus on their 50 pages of backstory (toy) will be very disappointed, but I've seen groups with similar desires for H&S where attention to detail on the character (build, personality, or appearance) (toy) could vary from welcome, neutral, or even disruptive.

So, even for the example you've given, where P & G are defined, the undefined T can not only vary by group, but by T (loving the effort put into the character, but not delivering on engaging their backstory effort, for example).

Also, personally, even in a H&S game with no focus on character, I personally love cool unique items, as they help make things memorable for my poor senile mind.

So, at this point, I'm heading that TPG is a good checklist for, "have we discussed the game from each of these angles?" In that regard, it may function better than the common words like What and Why.

Is this close to what you intended to get across?

Next up, I'll reply about the concept of knowing the purpose of a toy. That sounds promising.

Pleh

2018-03-29, 10:07 AM

It does seem like we're starting to get through. Yes, including a player with a highly toy based character in a game that is built for hacknslash play with pawns isn't necessarily incompatible.

You can choose to roleplay your chess pieces and give each pawn a name and backstory without necessarily changing how you will play the game of chess (turning them into Toys rather than Game Pieces), but if you turn the attachment to character up to 11 and the player begins consciously sacrificing tactical advantage to protect toys rather than their place in the Game, they have started playing a different game.

By happenstance, I just created a new version of chess (at least one I hadn't heard of, maybe someone else already thought of it): the "king" piece is randomized for both players, though the movement patterns of each piece remains the same. It seems to hybridize chess and poker as it turns half the game into reading your opponent and what they are trying to hide.

theCourier

2018-03-29, 10:10 AM

Oh, maybe you should reread it:

I did, and my point still stands; You're seeing a negative bias where there is none, because you're assuming that being ordered to do something is inherently bad. It's not. If in this case, the example has the players GOING to the king. We can see that they have agency in this, and are most likely going in order to inquire about the quest, or trial, or job or whatever. It turns out that the King wants a dragon slayed, so he orders them (most likely in return for some sort of reward or benefit) to go slay a dragon which if they didn't want to do, then why would they even go and visit a king in the first place??

Again, lets look at the example:

Sandbox-There is a kingdom that's having dragon problems. The dragon lives on Mount Doom

Ok, note how this example, unlike the others has the players doing nothing. So, this is why I say the so called sandbox example here is of characters doing nothing: It's in the example. The other examples had adventures where the characters ''did'' something, so if you ''do'' something in the so called sandbox, why is it not in the example?

The example doesn't have players doing something because of the inherent nature of sandboxes. They're meant to be filled with content that the players can pursue at their character's will or volition. The reason this particular example of a sandbox scenario doesn't have the players doing something is because that's how sandboxes work. There is meant to be a difference in how players benefit a particular quest or job, in that in sandboxes they can choose to do so or ignore it while pursuing something else while in a linear game the quest is the main objective.

That doesn't mean linear games are bad, or railroad-y. It's just differences in campaign design between sandbox and linear games. The example doesn't have the characters "do" anything because there's no set goal to "do". It's just one of the many things that can be investigated or interacted with.

If the characters are not doing any sort of thing with any substance or meaning it's not important. Sure the player might think it's the most importing thing ever for their barbarian to eat a piece of cake for an hour of real time....but it's not to anyone else.

And mostly your talking about the aimless wander...and yes, you can play the game that way and just do pointless, meaningless stuff for hours. And AGAIN, I'm talking about the point when the players finally say ''ok, lets go something more substantive and go on a real adventure.''

Again, you're framing sandbox games as pure time wasters with this hyperbole. And I'm not talking about aimless wander. There's no reason that a sandbox game can't have players choosing to take care of the hobgoblin threat while the dragon sits on top of Mount Doom or anything. Or traveling to another land while a bunch of other plot threads play out without them.

In order for the game play to have any meaning and not be pointless it has to be part of an organized detailed linear framework that makes sense, or to put it simply: An Adventure.

And an Adventure is NOT only the super epic destroy the One Ring, the Giant Rats of Bob's Red Barn IS also an Adventure.

I agree, an adventure doesn't have to be an epic, continent-spanning quest. So why do you keep being so opposed to a sandbox, where this is even more true? Not every quest or activity in a sandbox campaign has to be tied together by a "detailed linear framework", and yet they can still make sense within the greater context of the game. Yes, maybe going off to do something else (and no, this doesn't involve cake-eating) while a dragon sits in its mountain seems silly to you but that's the point of sandbox games; A DM creates content and fills the world with it, and players can choose to tackle it in any particular order they want. This doesn't make it superior to linear games. It's just an alternative.

So like two DMs Adam and Zeno both make the Dragon Trouble Adventure. Adam's group, being good players, only take a couple seconds to decide ''lets go see about that dragon". Zeno's group, are the so-called sandbox type, so no matter what they will utterly ignore the DM's Adventure Plot Hook and either do meaningless and pointless things (''we have our characters go to the bar and drink--I'm gonna roll a charisma check to flirt!") OR they do a bit of a jerk move and pick their own mimi adventure and force the DM to run it(they refuse to go on the DM's badwrongfun adventure, but they demand the DM run any adventure they whine and cry about).

Can I call you out for being biased again? Because that's exactly what you're doing. You list a scenario that you made up, and call it the "right" one with "good players" while berating another scenario that once again, YOU made up. The sandbox dragon example NEVER said anything about lollygagging away while a dragon is present. All it does is present the scenario in the way that a sandbox would; it's there, and you can choose to do it.

That's it. All the bias towards sandbox games is coming from you, not from others. Especially the part where you say that the sandbox players "whine and cry about". You're really not doing yourself any favors with that kind of stuff.

Florian

2018-03-29, 10:24 AM

@Quertus:

Switch to a game designer perspective and actually ask people what they want to do with their character and what is important to them. This will also give you a list of "toy qualities".

If, for example, verisimilitude is something that you feel to be essential for gaining immersion in your character, that will also transport over to how you play and should be reflected with the rules that you use to game. (I think it´s Max who's big on "associated rules")

Now contrast that with discussion I think we all already had with Cosi, that the RAW is the game, is how you play and you should model your toy around that(, so not being a wizard is useless).

Both are examples how "weighting" the three elements will affect how you understand TTRPGs.

1337 b4k4

2018-03-29, 10:48 AM

Segev

2018-03-29, 10:54 AM

It's also important to note that no decent sandbox has only "there is a kingdom that's having trouble with a dragon." That's not really serving the purpose of a sandbox, because it's true: there really is only the dragon adventure developed.

Now, if the kingdom were developed with a number of NPCs, each with their own motivations and goals, and other things the players can latch onto, it is, once again, a proper sandbox.

The linear adventure need only have the king, the specific scenes between the king and the final encounter with the dragon, and the dragon.

The sandbox needs to have enough of a developed kingdom and wildnerness that there are actually things to utilize in the party's quest to...do whatever they decide to do.

A sandbox would allow the players to view the king's desperation over the dragon as an opportunity to pursue their own ends within the kingdom, seeing as the king's resources and attention are devoted to the dragon. Or to ignore the dragon and pursue other aims within the kingdom. Perhaps they want to start their own tavern. Or to treat it like a tower defense game, and seek out means to build the kingdom's fortress-castles up to the point that they're too hard a target for the dragon to attack. Or to, yes, go hunt down and slay the dragon.

None of this is "ignoring the adventure" in a sandbox. This is taking the sandbox and making of it what you will. There is a dragon; it will exert influence on anything done in the kingdom unless taken out.

Now, if it's a linear game about slaying the dragon, there need not be development of the parts of the kingdom that don't show up on screen in the scheduled adventure. And players who ignore the dragon or try to do something other than accept the quest and go slay it are ignoring the adventure/derailing the module. Which is somewhat bad form, at best, and possibly jerk behavior at worst...assuming they knew what they were signing up for. But that's if it's a linear game.

Florian

2018-03-29, 11:13 AM

So at a broad level are we saying:

And if so, then "Sandbox" and "Linear" would mostly apply to the "Game" category of specifications, but have some overlap with the "Play" category and no (or miniscule) overlap with the "Toy"?

Right. So my view on sandboxes is informed by how I view "play" in this context and what the minimum size and complexity of the "objects" in the sandbox has to be so I begin to find them enjoyable. Not the amount of hooks, mind, but size and interconnectivity.

Quertus

2018-03-29, 03:08 PM

So at a broad level are we saying:

Game: This is the high level concept of what we're here to do, e.g. play a dungeon crawl, play a space trading game or play a murder mystery

Play: This is the "how we actually accomplish the above" so for our Murder Mystery game this might be a super serious high tension CoC scenario played straight, or it might be a sci-fi political intrigue with lots of twists and backstabbing or it might be a zany off the wall "Clue" style session where Inspector Gadget is the chief of police.

Toy: This is the pieces the players interact with the game with, whether it's highly detailed characters, or a stable of disposable clones or Fate points or dice pools. It's the "tactile" part of the game.

And if so, then "Sandbox" and "Linear" would mostly apply to the "Game" category of specifications, but have some overlap with the "Play" category and no (or miniscule) overlap with the "Toy"?

Right. So my view on sandboxes is informed by how I view "play" in this context and what the minimum size and complexity of the "objects" in the sandbox has to be so I begin to find them enjoyable. Not the amount of hooks, mind, but size and interconnectivity.

Hmmm... I could have sworn people said most of my criteria for a sandbox were not in the "game" portion of TPG.

My criteria have pretty well stabilized at "the GM creates the content, the players create the adventure (both "goal" and "method"). So, under TPG, that would be... the GM only creates T, and P&G are filled in, by the players, during the game. Sounds to me like I touch on the correct values of have been defining a sandbox in terms of all three. :smallconfused:

Lorsa

2018-03-29, 03:14 PM

it appears to me that the "toy", "game" and "play" terminology seeks to serve the same purpose as the "eight aesthetics of play", except with fewer categories.

Yes, again, a TRPG does not need a plot: you can have a ton of fun playing in the random mess. But an Adventure needs a plot.

Not in the way I view plot, as in a pre-defined sequence of events.

Yes, but we don't change the definition of a word based on some peoples actions. Some athletes cheat to win games, but we don't change the definition of athlete to ''ONLY cheaters". You only point out the bad behavior.

That's not what we are doing here either. We are looking at a very common behavior and giving it a name that is quite fitting given the terms general useage. When you have an adventure where the scenes and planned ahead of time, and needs to be played in that exact order, the adventure will look before even playing it as following a straight line. Or, in other words, linear

There is a huge difference between objective good and bad, and someones view of good and bad.

Funny. That's exactly what I said.

Except I also said that you have repeatedly tried to make your view of good and bad into objective statements.

I would say this is just your bias: you think everything I type is wrong; so when you read something of mine your just looking for how wrong it is.

Wrong.

I have been nothing but patient with you. I have given you the benefit of a doubt more times than you deserve.

However, you have repeatedly shown that you try to make objective statements of things that can only be subjective. Not to mention your obvious lack of reading comprehension, lack of understanding of simple concepts and ability to follow logical reasoning.

That's not my bias, that is a simple fact, visible to anyone that can bother doing a history search.

What I have yet to figure out is what you are actually hoping to accomplish.

I mean, if you join and internet discussion, you better be prepared to have an honest discussion.

Or, in other words; if you join the sandbox you better be ready to play.

Well, a normal game..a linear game...has the normal linear reality things in it like A Character opens door--->B Character walks through open doorway. So, your version of a game HAS to be different...or it's the same. So you have to have A Character opens door---> Z dogs and cats live together.

That has nothing to do with linearity and everything to do with cause-effect and verisimilitude.

A linear game has prepared a scene in the room without which the adventure can not continue.

So in a linear game, for the adventure to work, the game HAS to follow A Character opens door ---> B Character walks into the room.

For an open-ended adventure, or a sandbox, the following could take place:

A Character opens door ---> B Character walks into the room

or

A Character opens door ---> C Character looks into the room and decides to walk back the other way

or

A Character opens door ---> D Character closes door again

In a linear adventure, C and D would lead to adventure failure, as it is dependent upon the scene that was supposed to take place in the room.

jayem

2018-03-29, 03:45 PM

Some have claimed that the division of play/game/toy is meaningless to describing their game experience. I am simply stating that this is possible, as solid/liquid/gas seems rather meaningless to me in discussing what matter is poisonous.

There is a sense in which it does help. If the suspected poison is a gas, then it's acute effects will come into case when you walk into the room, but it will go away if you vent the air. Conversely if someone has been breathing throughout someone else dying, it's probably not a gas.
If the suspected poison is fully and stably solid (so excluding sublimination) then it's probably safe to walk around but it will remain there.
Liquids would be another case.

I'm not sure if there is an analogy (if nothing else solid-liquid-gas is linear, whereas play/game/toy isn't).

Pleh

2018-03-29, 05:35 PM

it appears to me that the "toy", "game" and "play" terminology seeks to serve the same purpose as the "eight aesthetics of play", except with fewer categories.

This made me go back and google the 8 aesthetics to refresh myself.

Extra Credits was one of the first results, so it didn't seem like it would hurt to start there.

the video (https://youtu.be/uepAJ-rqJKA)

Not long into the video, they mention that the 8 aesthetics are a subgroup from the original paper about Mechanics, Design, and Aesthetics. Based on their respective descriptions in the video, it seems like Game maps to Mechanics and Design maps to Play, leaving Aesthetics to theoretically map to Toy, but then implying there are at least 8 kinds of Toy.

EDIT: I actually just made a separate thread for this line of conversation. Over here if you're interested (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?554865-Toy-Game-Play-vs-Mechanics-Design-Aesthetics&p=22957407#post22957407)

Darth Ultron

2018-03-30, 10:14 AM

No. So many things wrong with this.

Both DMs are making content, so what wakes the so called sandbox content so different and special?

While Adams group has exactly the same floor and ceiling - go on the Dragon Trouble Adventure, Zeno's group has a much lower floor (drink and flirt), yes, but a much higher ceiling (take over the world, slay the gods, invent Food Bar 8.0, whatever). The sky players' imagination's the limit.

Right. The DM can sit there for days and tell the players how great and amazing they are and tell them they can do anything.

But, eventually the players will pick something to do: an adventure to go on. That is the point I'm starting from.

I did, and my point still stands; You're seeing a negative bias where there is none, because you're assuming that being ordered to do something is inherently bad. It's not. If in this case, the example has the players GOING to the king. We can see that they have agency in this, and are most likely going in order to inquire about the quest, or trial, or job or whatever. It turns out that the King wants a dragon slayed, so he orders them (most likely in return for some sort of reward or benefit) to go slay a dragon which if they didn't want to do, then why would they even go and visit a king in the first place??

First, you are reading things that simply are not there. Second, if the intention was to show happy, willing players: they why was this not typed in the example?

For Reference it would look something like this: "The king asks the characters to slay the dragon for a great reward and the characters willing jump at the chance and accept."

The reason this particular example of a sandbox scenario doesn't have the players doing something is because that's how sandboxes work.

Right, we both agree that sandboxes is where the players do nothing.

That doesn't mean linear games are bad, or railroad-y. It's just differences in campaign design between sandbox and linear games. The example doesn't have the characters "do" anything because there's no set goal to "do". It's just one of the many things that can be investigated or interacted with.

Right again, if the players are not ''doing'' anything, they are ''doing nothing''.

Again, you're framing sandbox games as pure time wasters with this hyperbole. And I'm not talking about aimless wander. There's no reason that a sandbox game can't have players choosing to take care of the hobgoblin threat while the dragon sits on top of Mount Doom or anything. Or traveling to another land while a bunch of other plot threads play out without them.

So, how do you have an adventure...or something exactly like an adventure in every way, except you won't call it an adventure just to make it sound cool...without it being just like any other TRPG game of the type we are talking about?

I agree, an adventure doesn't have to be an epic, continent-spanning quest. So why do you keep being so opposed to a sandbox, where this is even more true? Not every quest or activity in a sandbox campaign has to be tied together by a "detailed linear framework", and yet they can still make sense within the greater context of the game. Yes, maybe going off to do something else (and no, this doesn't involve cake-eating) while a dragon sits in its mountain seems silly to you but that's the point of sandbox games; A DM creates content and fills the world with it, and players can choose to tackle it in any particular order they want. This doesn't make it superior to linear games. It's just an alternative.

Even if the quest is a very simple quest in a very simple adventure, it still has to have "detailed linear framework". That is just how reality works. Otherwise it's just a random mess.

Can I call you out for being biased again? Because that's exactly what you're doing. You list a scenario that you made up, and call it the "right" one with "good players" while berating another scenario that once again, YOU made up. The sandbox dragon example NEVER said anything about lollygagging away while a dragon is present. All it does is present the scenario in the way that a sandbox would; it's there, and you can choose to do it.

You are correct that the sandbox example said the players did nothing. And my example has the players being cool sandbox jerks.

That's it. All the bias towards sandbox games is coming from you, not from others. Especially the part where you say that the sandbox players "whine and cry about". You're really not doing yourself any favors with that kind of stuff.

As Sandbox is meaningless I can't be bias against it....after all, non one can even say what a sandbox is.

It's also important to note that no decent sandbox has only "there is a kingdom that's having trouble with a dragon." That's not really serving the purpose of a sandbox, because it's true: there really is only the dragon adventure developed.

AGAIN, I will say this is true of any normal game. The DM makes lots of plot hooks, and the players pick one.

Can everyone please just get over this. In any normal game, the players can pick what they want their characters to do. This is a basic, fundamental part of a TRPG.

Now, if the kingdom were developed with a number of NPCs, each with their own motivations and goals, and other things the players can latch onto, it is, once again, a proper sandbox.

The linear adventure need only have the king, the specific scenes between the king and the final encounter with the dragon, and the dragon.

The sandbox needs to have enough of a developed kingdom and wildnerness that there are actually things to utilize in the party's quest to...do whatever they decide to do.

Your not only comparing apples and oranges, but your being very bias.

Super cool awesome sandbox: Wow, just wow, the DM like creates so much super duper awesome content of all types everywhere and makes a super cool amazing world and setting and everything. WOW.

Lame normal game-Oh, whatever, the lazy DM just makes an adventure. So that is like a town and a couple small locations and like a paragraph of notes just about this tiny little corner of the game world. And that is it, the DM makes nothing else ever, except for his dumb adventure.

But ok, lets try it a bit more balanced:

BOTH DM's create detailed game worlds.

The detail of a game world has nothing to do with if the game is a so called sandbox or not.

Milo v3

2018-03-30, 10:25 AM

My current game is not a sandbox or a railroad. It is a linear campaign, where the players are trying to deal with a king who was killed in their extraplanar nation, and that they have to uncover the plot behind it. They can do this via any means they feel necessary as long as it works via the ruleset.

If it was a sandbox game, there would be no "the campaign is about x", it'd just be that the planars are the characters they statted up in the extraplanar nation and then the players and myself would discover and decide what the campaigns about ongoingly.

If it was a railroad, that would require me to guess how my players are meant to solve the challenges that get put up against them in the first place. It would require me to ignore the players ideas just because I didn't think of them.

Segev

2018-03-30, 10:39 AM

As Sandbox is meaningless I can't be bias against it....after all, non one can even say what a sandbox is."As Darth Ultron's games are meaningless, I can't be biased against them." Note how I'm demonstrating bias in that quote by CALLING your games meaningless.

Now, I know you actually mean, "As the term 'sandbox' is meaningless," not, "As sandbox-style games are meaningless," but you are prone to taking things wrong to make your own points, so I thought I'd cover the bases and explain why others who might fall into the same traps you do would misinterpret what you said. However, you STILL are demonstrating bias with that dismissal. "Sandbox is meaningless; it's just a normal game. And normal games have plots, which the DM linearly leads the players down." "Sandboxes don't have the DM linearly leading players down a specified plot." "That's just a random mess and doesn't happen! Eventually the DM leads them down a plot or the game doesn't happen!"

AGAIN, I will say this is true of any normal game. The DM makes lots of plot hooks, and the players pick one.Not necessarily. There's nothing wrong with the DM having only one, linear plot, and selling the players on it before the game starts. "I am going to run a game where you guys are pirates trying to chase down a merchant ship. It'll be a 1, maybe 2-shot adventure," is perfectly fine. No plot hooks to choose between.

It is also possible that the DM has 4 or 5 modules ready to go, lays out the hooks, and lets the players pick one and go.

It is further possible that the DM doesn't have specified plots. Just hooks for players to grab onto and build their own. He has NPCs and events which will react to player action, and can handle any legal action the players have their characters take because nothing in his game can be "ruined" in terms of what he had planned. All that can happen is the world reacting to whatever the players do, or do not do.

Can everyone please just get over this. In any normal game, the players can pick what they want their characters to do. This is a basic, fundamental part of a TRPG.Sure. This is true in anything save a hard railroad. This doesn't mean that "sandbox" and "linear" aren't two distinct things. Both are normal games. Can you please get your head around the concept that "normal game" can have subsets?

Your not only comparing apples and oranges, but your being very bias.

Super cool awesome sandbox: Wow, just wow, the DM like creates so much super duper awesome content of all types everywhere and makes a super cool amazing world and setting and everything. WOW.

Lame normal game-Oh, whatever, the lazy DM just makes an adventure. So that is like a town and a couple small locations and like a paragraph of notes just about this tiny little corner of the game world. And that is it, the DM makes nothing else ever, except for his dumb adventure. You're the one giving the emotional tone to these, not me. Both are fine ways to run a game. Both can have problems. Both can be ruined by lazy DMs, though I will admit that lazy DMs will have better luck with linear games, simply because they can get away with less development of detailed environments. Though the lazy DM then faces a problem of having to improvise things more, which creates more work for him, and is likely to make him try to railroad harder rather than handling it well.

Lazy DMs are a separate problem from game style.

But ok, lets try it a bit more balanced:

BOTH DM's create detailed game worlds.

The detail of a game world has nothing to do with if the game is a so called sandbox or not.Sure. Though the advantage of a detailed game world with a linear game is that, if the game goes off the rails, it converts easily into a sandbox as the DM scraps his planned sequence of scenes and plot developments and starts rebuilding according to what the PCs have set the stage to be.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-30, 11:26 AM

That's not what we are doing here either. We are looking at a very common behavior and giving it a name that is quite fitting given the terms general useage. When you have an adventure where the scenes and planned ahead of time, and needs to be played in that exact order, the adventure will look before even playing it as following a straight line. Or, in other words, linear

Except no well written Adventure is like that? Sure there are bad ones, but all the rest never have have the level of jerk force your talking about.

Because reality and life is linear, an adventure....and just about everything must be linear. So if a character want to say ''see what is inside a treasure chest'', they have to ''open the treasure chest(somehow)".

A linear game has prepared a scene in the room without which the adventure can not continue.

Except this is a railroad. Why is it Linear in your mind? For the DM to sit on their hands and say ''Ok, guys you MUST have your characters enter the Door of Doom!" IS Railroading. This is where your confusing and mixing railroading with linear.

So in a linear game, for the adventure to work, the game HAS to follow A Character opens door ---> B Character walks into the room.

THIS is true of any normal game that makes logical sense in reality.

For an open-ended adventure, or a sandbox, the following could take place:

A Character opens door ---> B Character walks into the room

or

A Character opens door ---> C Character looks into the room and decides to walk back the other way

or

A Character opens door ---> D Character closes door again

In a linear adventure, C and D would lead to adventure failure, as it is dependent upon the scene that was supposed to take place in the room.

BUT why can't any of your ''or''s happen in what you call a Linear Game?

Like is the badwrongfun your version only of the word linear DM, going to tell the player:

#2-"''Sorry your character CAN NEVER EVER walk the other way because my game is a dumb definition of linear!"

#3-"''Sorry your character CAN NEVER EVER look into the room and then walk the other way because my game is a dumb definition of linear!"

#4-"''Sorry your character CAN NEVER EVER close the door because my game is a dumb definition of linear!"

Really, do you not see how wacky it sounds with your saying that ONLY in the special Sandbox game can a character EVER close a door?

Not necessarily. There's nothing wrong with the DM having only one, linear plot, and selling the players on it before the game starts. "I am going to run a game where you guys are pirates trying to chase down a merchant ship. It'll be a 1, maybe 2-shot adventure," is perfectly fine. No plot hooks to choose between.

This is STILL the players choosing the Adventure. It does not really matter if the DM has 12 or they just have 1 adventure ready: Because if the players say ''no'', then the DM HAS to pull out #2.

It is further possible that the DM doesn't have specified plots. Just hooks for players to grab onto and build their own. He has NPCs and events which will react to player action, and can handle any legal action the players have their characters take because nothing in his game can be "ruined" in terms of what he had planned. All that can happen is the world reacting to whatever the players do, or do not do.

Sure, the DM can make an improv adventure during the game. Toss a twist at the players and they can take some time to talk and discuss, giving the DM time to ''improv'' the adventure. Note, this is still the DM making the adventure. Sure, it won't be a good or great adventure...as it was made in a couple minutes...but it might be more then ''good'' enough to fool most clueless players.

Sure. This is true in anything save a hard railroad. This doesn't mean that "sandbox" and "linear" aren't two distinct things. Both are normal games. Can you please get your head around the concept that "normal game" can have subsets?

Yet, somehow people can't list the ''subsets'' other then to just give a random mess of examples that make no sense.

Sure. Though the advantage of a detailed game world with a linear game is that, if the game goes off the rails, it converts easily into a sandbox as the DM scraps his planned sequence of scenes and plot developments and starts rebuilding according to what the PCs have set the stage to be.

If you have a good DM, the game can never ''go off the rails'', that is a problem only bad and average DMs have.

jayem

2018-03-30, 12:16 PM

Your not only comparing apples and oranges, but your being very bias.

Super cool awesome sandbox: Wow, just wow, the DM like creates so much super duper awesome content of all types everywhere and makes a super cool amazing world and setting and everything. WOW.

Lame normal game-Oh, whatever, the lazy DM just makes an adventure. So that is like a town and a couple small locations and like a paragraph of notes just about this tiny little corner of the game world. And that is it, the DM makes nothing else ever, except for his dumb adventure.

Well it is a necessary connection. Linear games need the depth of time, Sandbox games need the breadth in space.
You can fill in some of the details in both, but the near stuff needs planning and the far stuff needs it's general shape.

I guess you could have some 'ideal' game that had perfect depth along a massive breath. But in practice I think both camps would join against it (it neither having the chekov's gun type stuff of the linear game, and having a bit too 'solved' to interest the sandboxers).

Someone posted a situation where they wanted a mob boss to taunt the PC's and survive. This is a linear element. We have a point now, a fixed point in the future.
Planning has to be done as to how to make the boss survive, whatever the players do. Branches that appear to diverge to kill the boss, to imprison the boss need to be regrafted to join the main line.
Planning does not have to be done as to what happens if the boss is killed. That branch is not on the line, it is pruned off.
If the outside world Now has to change "um..he has reinforcements, the ogre was on the southern road", then that would not prevent the stated task. Of course it is better the better this is prepared.

Now lets sandbox it. A mob boss taunts the PC's with some reinforcements waiting next door. This is a sandbox element. We have a current state.
Planning does not have to be done to make the boss survive. The tree of options no longer looks like a Royal Family Tree.
Planning does have to be done for if the boss is killed. It could happen (it might be sensible to put more effort in the more likely options).
If some chekov's gun or interesting idea has to be abandoned. Then that's necessary.

You could have a mix. A mob boss taunts the PC's, I'd quite like him to survive so if he's losing I might speed up the reinforcements a bit, but if they beat them too he's dead. and other variants that are more like the Sandbox version, or more like the linear version.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-30, 01:08 PM

Well it is a necessary connection. Linear games need the depth of time, Sandbox games need the breadth in space.

Well, the DM having an idea of an NPC boos that taunts the PCs and survives is linear, and part of any normal game.

But then the so called sandbox idea just breaks apart and makes no sense.

First, you like many others, are doing the apples and oranges compassion. Linear is because the DM ''wants'' something. Sandbox is because the DM is ''acting smart and being clever''. It does make it look like ''the DM wanting something'' is bad and the DM being "smart and clever".

Like why can't the linear game boss have goons nearby? This makes sense and is smart and clever...and really, what ''boss'' ever would meet with armed and dangerous PCs alone with no goons nearby?

I guess your saying the so called sandbox game ''is'' because the DM wants nothing and has no plan. The DM just says ''there is a boss'' and then sits back and lets ''whatever happen''.

Except this makes no sense. Really, what ''boss'' ever would meet with armed and dangerous PCs alone with no goons nearby? So in both games, this should really happen.

The only difference between the two games is how much of a jerk the DM would be:

1.The normal linear game: the DM pre makes a way or two for the Boss to survive including a secret exit and goons and such. So, no matter what happens in the encounter, the DM has things pre made to use; but they are also pre made for the players to find and use.

2.The so called sandbox game: The DM just tosses the boss and the goons with no plan and just ''sees what happens''. So if the boss survives it is just at random, and really at best it's the DM being a jerk and ''spontaneously improving " a secret exit to randomly have the boos survive.

JNAProductions

2018-03-30, 01:14 PM

Segev

2018-03-30, 01:38 PM

This is STILL the players choosing the Adventure. It does not really matter if the DM has 12 or they just have 1 adventure ready: Because if the players say ''no'', then the DM HAS to pull out #2.Given that what I said here was, "The DM recruited the players for this particular adventure," you're right in that the players chose to join the game. But that's getting pretty pedantic. At this point, I think you're saying, "No, everything you said was wrong, until I rephrase it to say the same thing and say I'm right."

Sure, the DM can make an improv adventure during the game. Toss a twist at the players and they can take some time to talk and discuss, giving the DM time to ''improv'' the adventure. Note, this is still the DM making the adventure. Sure, it won't be a good or great adventure...as it was made in a couple minutes...but it might be more then ''good'' enough to fool most clueless players.Nonsense. You don't have to have the scenes planned out for it to be a high-quality game. Only the environments and the NPCs. I won't say it isn't improv; it certainly requires some. But by that definition of "improv," linear games that aren't strict railroads require just as much, just of a different sort. They require improvisation of behaviors and reactions to the PCs within the set scenes, including making up new motivations and the like where they were not well enough developed to run a sandbox should the players not go the predicted way towards a solution.

Yet, somehow people can't list the ''subsets'' other then to just give a random mess of examples that make no sense."Because I can't grasp the concept of subsets, and insist on insulting and dismissing all examples that demonstrate them, they must not exist. Likewise, the Earth must be flat because for it to be round would require all the water drain out of the oceans and into space because that's what happens if you pour water onto a ball."

If you have a good DM, the game can never ''go off the rails'', that is a problem only bad and average DMs have.And now you're behaving the way you do every time you know you can't back up your position: you're insisting that any example that doesn't conform to your preferences is bad, and must mean that people inferior to yourself are involved. And, if I were to point out that players can always surprise even the best GMs, you'll blame the players for being "jerks" because they didn't follow the GM's perfect plans.

Seriously, Darth, you need to stop looking for ways to misinterpret everything in a way you can dismiss, and actually attempt to understand. I sincerely hope you're not actually this myopic and narrow-minded that you literally cannot wrap your head around these concepts; that's actually worse than being determinedly stubborn about deliberately misrepresenting people. At least the latter is something you could correct by stepping back and trying to ask yourself how others perceive things; the former is a mental disability, and I feel badly for you if that's the case.

Please, attempt an assumption: "The Everyone Collective" is made up of individuals, at least a number of whom (greater than zero) are in at LEAST your league of intelligence. They yet hold to definitions and models that you keep dismissing. Under the assumption that at least one person at least as smart as you holds those positions, attempt to ask yourself how they can do so, and try to grasp what it is they're saying. If you find yourself scoffing and hurling invective about "random messes" and huffing "somehow" this "works," stop yourself, and step back again, realizing that you may be too focused on your own position, and try again to appreciate theirs.

You don't have to wind up agreeing with it. Just...understanding it. So that you can discuss it like an intelligent adult, rather than looking like a 5-year-old who's trying to explain why it's not fair that Suzy gets to have a turn on the computer when YOU want to play on it. The constant misrepresentations and "all you're saying is that you have a random mess that SOMEHOW is PERFECT" screeds really do come off with that level of immaturity and as that kind of self-serving intellectual dishonesty.

jayem

2018-03-30, 03:56 PM

First, you like many others, are doing the apples and oranges compassion. Linear is because the DM ''wants'' something. Sandbox is because the DM is ''acting smart and being clever''. It does make it look like ''the DM wanting something'' is bad and the DM being "smart and clever".

Fine, then in our linear example "the GM RANDOMLY decides that the boss should survive for NO REASON". He isn't going to show up again. It won't inspire the players to take revenge. But that takes all the good points out of a linear element, and shouldn't be considered representative.

Like why can't the linear game boss have goons nearby? This makes sense and is smart and clever...and really, what ''boss'' ever would meet with armed and dangerous PCs alone with no goons nearby?

No reason why he can't (consider my first use of reinforcements to be a unit in addition to his basic goons if it helps)

1.The (boss survives) linear game: the DM pre makes a way or two for the Boss to survive including a secret exit and goons and such. If these are inadequate then there will be at least some additional exits/goons/beggings/threats/meteorites/fudging etc as required.

2.The (boss encounter) sandbox game: the DM (maybe) pre makes a way or two for the Boss to survive including a secret exit and goons and such. Depending on what happens in the encounter, the DM has things pre made to use; but they are also pre made for the players to find and use.

NB In this case the difference only occurs if the Boss not surviving is tested. If the goons intimidate the PC's from getting involved in the first place then the difference is only theoretical.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-30, 10:06 PM

No, the main difference is that in a linear game, the boss MUST survive. The game will not continue if they die.

In a sandbox game, the boss can die. There are probably things in place that make that a difficult result to happen, but if the boss dies, the game continues just fine.

But the only thing you can possibly be talking about here is a Bad DM.

Either a DM that is a jerk or is an un-experienced noob. Those are the ONLY DM's that would do something like that.

Like can you tell me ANY published adventure that says something like ''If the characters kill Boss Bob, you must stop playing this module and toss it to the side."

Given that what I said here was, "The DM recruited the players for this particular adventure," you're right in that the players chose to join the game. But that's getting pretty pedantic. At this point, I think you're saying, "No, everything you said was wrong, until I rephrase it to say the same thing and say I'm right."

The sandbox people seem to have this idea that...somehow...players are forced to go on an adventure that the DM wants. It's like an unrealistic nightmare.

When ANY normal game, a DM will ask the players first before the game about what adventure to use AND/OR let the charactrers pick something to do during the game play.

Nonsense. You don't have to have the scenes planned out for it to be a high-quality game. Only the environments and the NPCs. I won't say it isn't improv; it certainly requires some. But by that definition of "improv," linear games that aren't strict railroads require just as much, just of a different sort. They require improvisation of behaviors and reactions to the PCs within the set scenes, including making up new motivations and the like where they were not well enough developed to run a sandbox should the players not go the predicted way towards a solution.

Right, the DM only has to have the environments, NPCs and lots of notes/thoughts that link it all together.....or, to put it another way: Scenes.

"Because I can't grasp the concept of subsets, and insist on insulting and dismissing all examples that demonstrate them, they must not exist. Likewise, the Earth must be flat because for it to be round would require all the water drain out of the oceans and into space because that's what happens if you pour water onto a ball."

I grasp the general concept....but no one can give any good RPG ones.

And now you're behaving the way you do every time you know you can't back up your position: you're insisting that any example that doesn't conform to your preferences is bad, and must mean that people inferior to yourself are involved. And, if I were to point out that players can always surprise even the best GMs, you'll blame the players for being "jerks" because they didn't follow the GM's perfect plans.

No? It has nothing to do with my preferences.

A good DM does not let the game ''go off the rails'', it just never happens. It's only the bad DM that has a ''big problem''.

And this is the most basic definition of good and bad. An athlete looses: The Good athlete deals with it by reviewing what they did, looking for mistakes and ways to improve, training harder, and trying again. The Bad athlete whines, and complains, and cries, and blames other people and vows to never try again.

Please, attempt an assumption: "The Everyone Collective" is made up of individuals, at least a number of whom (greater than zero) are in at LEAST your league of intelligence. They yet hold to definitions and models that you keep dismissing. Under the assumption that at least one person at least as smart as you holds those positions, attempt to ask yourself how they can do so, and try to grasp what it is they're saying. If you find yourself scoffing and hurling invective about "random messes" and huffing "somehow" this "works," stop yourself, and step back again, realizing that you may be too focused on your own position, and try again to appreciate theirs.

It's not like life is all about pure intelligence. The big Collective problem is the human social one: people want to fit in and be one of the crowd. Most people that think ''X'' do so as everyone around them thinks ''X'', and they don't want to be the odd person out.

Fine, then in our linear example "the GM RANDOMLY decides that the boss should survive for NO REASON". He isn't going to show up again. It won't inspire the players to take revenge. But that takes all the good points out of a linear element, and shouldn't be considered representative.

It does high light why all TRPG are linear: they have to be.

After all the so called sandbox way is: whatever, the characters WILL automatically kill the boss and NOTHING at all will happen.

1.The (boss survives) linear game: the DM pre makes a way or two for the Boss to survive including a secret exit and goons and such. If these are inadequate then there will be at least some additional exits/goons/beggings/threats/meteorites/fudging etc as required.

Wait. You are suddenly jumping from ''linear game'' to ''what if the DM just changes stuff on a whim to do whatever they want?" Are you trying to say *all* linear games are ones will the DM can just ''change stuff at will"? And, so, a sandbox DM then can *never* change anything...does that really make sense to you?

2.The (boss encounter) sandbox game: the DM (maybe) pre makes a way or two for the Boss to survive including a secret exit and goons and such. Depending on what happens in the encounter, the DM has things pre made to use; but they are also pre made for the players to find and use.

So, now your saying a so called sandbox game is what I call a normal game.

Like you have the Linear game as ''The DM satnds up and says NO MATTER WHAT YOUR SILLY CHARACTERS DO THE BOSS WILL SURVIVE! I HAVE SPOKEN!" Then the players waste the time doing the non-encounter...and the boss escapes.

But the sandbox DM is all like ''well, anything can happen...lets game." Then everyone has a normal encounter.

JeenLeen

2018-03-30, 10:27 PM

But the only thing you can possibly be talking about here is a Bad DM.

Either a DM that is a jerk or is an un-experienced noob. Those are the ONLY DM's that would do something like that.

Like can you tell me ANY published adventure that says something like ''If the characters kill Boss Bob, you must stop playing this module and toss it to the side."

Here, I'll agree with you.

I doubt that the modules actually state that (unless it is a truly atrocious module), but if an entire arch of the module is entirely dependent on event X (like Boss Bob surviving), then there's not much to do except toss out the module is event X doesn't occur.

If a good DM is railroading (or a module is very well-made), then they likely pre-planned things such that there is no likely way the boss can die. If the players surprise him... well, innovate until the boss survives. This can lead to unrealistically changing something on the fly, but a good DM could make it seem like part of the setting all-along.

I personally find that not a really fun game and prefer one more realistic (e.g., PCs can manage to kill the boss, even if really not planned to work out that way), but if I liked my DM and wanted to go along with the story, I can see it being fun.

Wait. You are suddenly jumping from ''linear game'' to ''what if the DM just changes stuff on a whim to do whatever they want?" Are you trying to say *all* linear games are ones will the DM can just ''change stuff at will"? And, so, a sandbox DM then can *never* change anything...does that really make sense to you?

Not speaking for jayem, but here's my thought on this: I think a strictly linear game would require a DM to at-times change things. Whether it's because the player did some surprising and made a way to kill Boss Bob, or because they are planning something that should enable them to kill Boss Bob -- at one of those (or some equivalent) point, the DM needs to stop it to keep the plot from getting off the rails.
If you disagree, how would you say a good DM should handle that?

As for sandbox games, the DM indeed could change things on the fly, but there isn't a strong motivation to. The linear-railroad game requires things to stay on the rails, so the DM has a motivation to change things to keep them on the rails. The sandbox DM has no such motivation. I do think both types of DM/game could have things changing on the fly for other motivations, like to make a player happy (e.g., if in a sandbox, I decide my player wants to hunt werewolves, it's reasonable for the DM to change things so that there are werewolves in the creepy woods, whereas before that was not the case.)

Again, a good DM can likely make these changes without the players knowing, so it all seems a logical and realistic extension of the setting.

Darth Ultron

2018-03-30, 11:47 PM

I personally find that not a really fun game and prefer one more realistic (e.g., PCs can manage to kill the boss, even if really not planned to work out that way), but if I liked my DM and wanted to go along with the story, I can see it being fun.

It's a bit odd that your idea of reality is ''the players can disrupt the DM's plans''? So you like the Dm to make a plan, have an idea or do anything at all....but then insist it has to not go that way to be real.

I do it the other way, more like ''real'' reality: it is based on the NPC. So most Boss types are not going to just jump into melee with the PCs and mindlessly fight until they are dead...like in a video game. Some bosses will do that, but most won't. And even the average boss has an escape plan or trick up their sleeve: that is why they *are* the boss.

If you disagree, how would you say a good DM should handle that?

I agree that a bad DM in any game has to stumble and trip and fumble and such to try to keep the game on the rails.

The good DM does not have that problem. The game flows on, no mater what ripples the characters make. The characters CAN change things....but a LOT of things take a bit more effort to change then just ''rolling some dice for a round".

Take the Boss Bob encounter. The characters kill Boss Bob...and the clueless players think ''oh, every bad guy in the world will now explode(because they killed one boss) " or something stupid like that. But what happens really depends on the setting and what all the characters do. If the Group of Evil has 100 members, and the characters encounter 10 of then and kill them all...it's likely the other 90 members will be ok and respond somehow(maybe). And even if the characters kill Boss Bob....there is just about always a Starscream ready to take over.

And it might change the tone and flavor of the Group of Evil, and thier part in the adventure. Boss Bob was a slow, cold and calculating foe, but Starscream is a murderdeathkill! type of foe: so while Boss Bob was willing to wait a week for the ransom, Starscream kills a hostage every hour! OR it could be the reverse, where Boss Bob was the crazy killer and Starscream is the cold one....or lots of other things.

The sandbox DM has no such motivation.

But how does a so called sandbox have anything happen then?

Say the characters take an action...like rob a bad guys bank. The DM responds by having the bad guys come after the characters. So there is one fight...and the PCs kill the Boss.

So the sandbox DM just says ''whatever''....and nothing else happens in the game about this at all. The PC's kill one NPC, and it's ''Reset Button" and the DM just sits back and asks the players what they want to do next?

Because the sandbox DM can never, EVER, even have the hint of the thought of ''humm, might be cool to have a bad guy villain coming after the characters for like longer then ten minutes".

It would seem to make it impossible to do anything complex and long lasting.

Xuc Xac

2018-03-31, 12:52 AM

But how does a so called sandbox have anything happen then?

Say the characters take an action...like rob a bad guys bank. The DM responds by having the bad guys come after the characters. So there is one fight...and the PCs kill the Boss.

So the sandbox DM just says ''whatever''....and nothing else happens in the game about this at all. The PC's kill one NPC, and it's ''Reset Button" and the DM just sits back and asks the players what they want to do next?

Uh, no. Why would they just stop there? The PCs kill the crime boss, the criminal gang reacts depending on their own character and play continues. Maybe the gang just breaks up because Boss Bob was the only thing holding them together. Maybe they have a strict hierarchy, so the Assistant Boss gets a promotion and things continue under new leadership. In a sandbox, it never just stops. The DM does ask the PCs what they want to do next after killing the boss, BUT the DM also makes the NPCs' next moves too because the world keeps turning. Stuff keeps happening because PCs and NPCs keep doing stuff. There is no point where the DM says "Ding! Adventure complete! You have broken Boss Bob's gang and they will never bother anyone again! The peasants rejoice!" and all the gang members just disappear. (Unless, of course, you slaughter every last one of them, but that's the kind of thing that has repercussions too.)

Because the sandbox DM can never, EVER, even have the hint of the thought of ''humm, might be cool to have a bad guy villain coming after the characters for like longer then ten minutes".

In a sandbox game, the DM decides whether or not the villain will "come after" the PCs based on the villain's personality, goals, and relationships with the PCs. Some villains might have a personal vendetta against them for interfering in the evil plan, others might just see the PCs as a distraction and ignore them if they stay out of the way.

In a linear game, the DM might decide to have the villain come after them because it would be dramatic and make a better story. For the same reason, the DM might decide in advance that the villain will definitely be escaping from their first few encounters with the PCs because they have to build up to a climactic, final battle.

Lorsa

2018-03-31, 02:51 AM

Except no well written Adventure is like that? Sure there are bad ones, but all the rest never have have the level of jerk force your talking about.

I think a discussion about whether or not they are "well-written" is missing the point.

The fact is that these adventures do exist, they are extremely common and therefore deserve to be categorized. Simply calling them "poorly written" isn't enough, as things can be poorly written in any number of ways.

Because reality and life is linear, an adventure....and just about everything must be linear. So if a character want to say ''see what is inside a treasure chest'', they have to ''open the treasure chest(somehow)".

And that is the most stupid definition of linear of them all. This essentially makes everything that players do in a RPG linear and thus all games ever are linear. Which, incidentally, makes it into a meaningless phrase. As I prefer meaningful phrases, I choose to find a definition which DOES NOT include everything.

Except this is a railroad. Why is it Linear in your mind? For the DM to sit on their hands and say ''Ok, guys you MUST have your characters enter the Door of Doom!" IS Railroading. This is where your confusing and mixing railroading with linear.

It might be a railroad but it doesn't have to be railroading. If the characters do not walk through the door, the DM might very well allow them to do so, it's just that the adventure will not continue.

Players who do enjoy the linear type games will follow the DMs story-arrows and walk through the door. Those that do not enjoy linear games might not, and the game will most likely either result in railroading from the DM OR boredom as nothing happens.

THIS is true of any normal game that makes logical sense in reality.

Wait what? So they are NOT allowed to close the door and walk about in any normal game that makes logical sense in reality?

BUT why can't any of your ''or''s happen in what you call a Linear Game?

Uh, because you just said that only the example where the characters walked through the door makes logical sense?

Like is the badwrongfun your version only of the word linear DM, going to tell the player:

#2-"''Sorry your character CAN NEVER EVER walk the other way because my game is a dumb definition of linear!"

#3-"''Sorry your character CAN NEVER EVER look into the room and then walk the other way because my game is a dumb definition of linear!"

#4-"''Sorry your character CAN NEVER EVER close the door because my game is a dumb definition of linear!"

No, he is not. But at the same time, the linear adventure DM might have nothing planned for how to progress the adventure when the characters do walk away. Since they will miss the encounter where they would have gotten the letter clue off the dead body to lead them to the warehouse at midnight when the crime boss they were hunting was making a trade and...

Really, do you not see how wacky it sounds with your saying that ONLY in the special Sandbox game can a character EVER close a door?

Actually, I was not talking about sandboxes here. In fact, "open-ended adventures" would also work fine with the characters deciding to walk the other way. Running open-ended adventures does not make a thing a sandbox, but running a sandbox necessitates that all adventures are open-ended.

In fact, even in a linear adventure can the characters close the door, it's just the adventure will fail as they will not have encountered the event that will take them to the next part.

theCourier

2018-03-31, 03:09 AM

First, you are reading things that simply are not there. Second, if the intention was to show happy, willing players: they why was this not typed in the example?

For Reference it would look something like this: "The king asks the characters to slay the dragon for a great reward and the characters willing jump at the chance and accept."

Because the examples given to you were statements. They weren't biased, and held no opinion. All they did, was state scenarios. You're basically asking me, "How come people don't phrase things the way that I do?" Again, not jumping at the chance to do something doesn't mean you're being forced.

Right, we both agree that sandboxes is where the players do nothing.

Ok, so you're definitely doing this to mess with people on purpose right? Either that, or there's just a big language barrier and you're not understanding what I mean.

So, how do you have an adventure...or something exactly like an adventure in every way, except you won't call it an adventure just to make it sound cool...without it being just like any other TRPG game of the type we are talking about?

It's a simple matter of structure. A sandbox game means that players can choose to tackle content in whatever order they wish. A linear game isn't going to allow players to completely ditch the adventure they're following in pursuit of facing something else. And this isn't a criticism of linear games or anything, so don't think I'm saying it's bad that linear games have a degree of linearity to them.

Even if the quest is a very simple quest in a very simple adventure, it still has to have "detailed linear framework". That is just how reality works. Otherwise it's just a random mess.

Not necessarily! Yes, a plot hook or quest in a sandbox game can have a detailed linear framework to it. But there's literally nothing stopping the DM from planning out different consequences or ways to solve a problem. This does not make it a random mess.

You are correct that the sandbox example said the players did nothing. And my example has the players being cool sandbox jerks.

Ok, so you're admitting your biases now. Do you see how this makes you less credible in the eyes of the people you're trying to convince? And no, the sandbox example doesn't say anything about the players choosing or not choosing to engage the dragon or take a quest. All it does is demonstrate a plot hook in the way that it would come up in a sandbox game; There's something here, and the party can go and investigate it if they want.

As Sandbox is meaningless I can't be bias against it....after all, non one can even say what a sandbox is.

*Deep, deep breath* Nope. I don't have anything to say to that because it doesn't even merit a response.

jayem

2018-03-31, 04:54 AM

But the only thing you can possibly be talking about here is a Bad DM.

Either a DM that is a jerk or is an un-experienced noob. Those are the ONLY DM's that would do something like that.

You do know where I took that example from, don't you?

So, now your saying a so called sandbox game is what I call a normal game.

Depends, on what you call a normal game (element)...

Your example to JeenLean is definitely tending to the sandboxy (the more so if the existence of the deputy were known and their character differs. Less so if he's clearly a Bob clone so the preplanned plot can occur as planned). However when you first posted it. It was clear and explicit that you needed him to survive for a future scene (which is linear).

Drax's cave was semi-justifiably linear, but it had a strong hint that it was designed that way for the GM's benefit rather than Drax's.
The reaction to the Indian's or Pirate's scenario showed a very linear approach.
However you've also said other things...

Going by that it could suggest that (unsurprisingly) you have a mix of sandbox elements and linear elements. Though it's hard to tell as you tend to be unable to hold two possible futures at once in discussion (so now we'll probably have to convince you that Bob could possibly survive).

Though that sits slightly uneasily with your assertion that the players never go 'off the rails' (and previous boasts of railroading ability). Which could be because the rails are sufficiently wide (pure sandbox), or that they are enforced so tightly that they don't have the chance (pure linear). But difficult in the middle.

Florian

2018-03-31, 05:41 AM

*Deep, deep breath* Nope. I don't have anything to say to that because it doesn't even merit a response.

*Long sigh, too*

But this is still the heart of the whole discussion and a lot of people just push very empty phrases, so far. I tend to agree with DU a bit, when some people try to describe their understanding of "sandbox", it sounds like a long chain of "and then", followed by a short burst of improv by the gm, rinse, repeat.

Looking at it from a gamist/challenge-focused perspective, that is actually lacking all the crucial elements to support that play style, same from a narrativist/story-focused perspective.

It doesn't even explain how it should promote an emergent story, unless the elements to interact with are created with something in mind, like the previously mentioned cannibal tribe, which again touches on the whole intention behind the creation method used, like building random charts to support "Gygaxian Naturalism", being intentionally chosen to simulate something or being selected for the in-game value and fun at handling that.

The whole discussion also contradicts itself when it comes to linearity. Either the sandbox is a static construct without any moving parts besides the one the players interact with right now, or actions will lead to consequences and that will lead to linear behavior (example: two starting hooks: Bandits raid caravans on the south road, ghouls plague a village on the north road. Does something happen when you go for one hook in preference to the other, yes or no?).

jayem

2018-03-31, 06:45 AM

*Long sigh, too*
The whole discussion also contradicts itself when it comes to linearity. Either the sandbox is a static construct without any moving parts besides the one the players interact with right now, or actions will lead to consequences and that will lead to linear behavior (example: two starting hooks: Bandits raid caravans on the south road, ghouls plague a village on the north road. Does something happen when you go for one hook in preference to the other, yes or no?).

That seems backwards to me, can you explain how/why you think that?

If the game is unresponsive (consider morrowind)

If you go for the Ghouls (and leave the Bandits for the moment) then if you had a scene planned for meeting the bandits. It can still happen.
If you go to the Bandits (and leave the Ghoulds) then if you had a scene planned for meeting the bandits. It can still happen.

You kind of have a diverging state, in one the bandits and alive and the ghouls are dead. In the other it's the other way around. But it makes no real difference. You could just start each section with "When" instead of "And then".
(It's a set of sandboxes in the programming use of the term)

If the game is responsive in a short term sandbox fashion

If you go for the Ghouls (and leave the Bandits for the moment) then if you had a scene planned for meeting the bandits. It won't happen, things have changed. Perhaps the Bandit's have taken the city.
If you go to the Bandits (and leave the Ghoulds) then if you had a scene planned for meeting the bandits. Again it won't happen. Things have changed. Perhaps the Ghouls begin some devastating ritual.

You have at least one diverging state. It's only one branch and one step, so it's a bit early to say sandbox.
But even now if the NPC's respond you can only say "and then" in retrospect, there isn't the line. In the midstate (either the Bandits are in charge of the town or the ghouls are ritually destroying the world)

If the game is responsive in a short term linear fashion

If you go for the Ghouls ... you get lost and end up going south or something ...Then
(If you go south) you go to the bandits then to the Ghouls.

Whatever happens you fight the bandits "and then" the ghouls.

If you go for the Bandits ... you get lost and end up going north or something ...Then
(If you go north) you go to the ghouls then to the Bandits.

Whatever happens you fight the bandits "and then" the ghouls.

If the game is responsive in a long term linear fashion

If you go for the Ghouls ... the bandits raid the city then withdraw or something
If you go for the Bandits ... the ghouls raid the city then withdraw or something

Whatever happens at the end the Ghouls are dead, the city is dead the bandits are dead. ready for planned event...
Or you can say "and then after some bits ..."

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-31, 08:31 AM

*Long sigh, too*

But this is still the heart of the whole discussion and a lot of people just push very empty phrases, so far. I tend to agree with DU a bit, when some people try to describe their understanding of "sandbox", it sounds like a long chain of "and then", followed by a short burst of improv by the gm, rinse, repeat.

Looking at it from a gamist/challenge-focused perspective, that is actually lacking all the crucial elements to support that play style, same from a narrativist/story-focused perspective.

It doesn't even explain how it should promote an emergent story, unless the elements to interact with are created with something in mind, like the previously mentioned cannibal tribe, which again touches on the whole intention behind the creation method used, like building random charts to support "Gygaxian Naturalism", being intentionally chosen to simulate something or being selected for the in-game value and fun at handling that.

Build it to make actual sense as a living world, let it start moving, and let the players interact with it via their characters.

A campaign set in such a world is no more a "long chain of 'and then'" than real lives in the real world are.

The whole discussion also contradicts itself when it comes to linearity. Either the sandbox is a static construct without any moving parts besides the one the players interact with right now, or actions will lead to consequences and that will lead to linear behavior (example: two starting hooks: Bandits raid caravans on the south road, ghouls plague a village on the north road. Does something happen when you go for one hook in preference to the other, yes or no?).

Why would the behavior automatically be linear? In the context of these discussions, and the context of campaign structures, "linear" refers to behavior or plot that continues along a single predetermined line no matter what, and that interactions and circumstances must be made to mesh with. It's not about what one of the actors involved is doing, it's about what they will do, and whether that will change based on what happens going forward.

"Causal": the PCs stop a bandit raid on a family farm, and kill/capture all the bandits. The family flees for the nearest walled village for safety and to warn to local sheriff or lord or whoever. The local militia are now actively trying to thwart the rest of the bandits too.

"Linear" (verging on railroad): the PCs stop a bandit raid on a family farm, and kill/capture all the bandits. The family flees for the nearest walled village, but the GM doesn't want the locals involved because "not a good story" or "makes the challenge too weak", so decides to add more bandits on the spur of the moment to intercept the family so word doesn't get out to the local authorities/militia, leaving the PCs as the only people trying to thwart the bandits.

Florian

2018-03-31, 09:22 AM

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-31, 09:45 AM

Darth Ultron

2018-03-31, 11:20 AM

Uh, no. Why would they just stop there?

Well, this is the basic problem with the so called sandbox idea: it hostile against the DM doing anything to effect the characters.

Just take a simple action: The Dm has some thugs attack the characters.

1.Badwrongfunway- The DM, all by themselves on a whim or part of a evil DM plan has the thugs attack the players. EVERYONE just goes crazy and whines and screams and complains and says this is wrong.

2.The Cool Sandbox Way- The DM just sits and waits for the players to do something to trigger the thug attack, and then and only then, can the thug attack happen. EVERYONE cheers and says this is the bast game 4ever!

In a sandbox game,
In a linear game

But, how is this not the same thing?

The so called linear game is a normal DM trying to make a good game.

The so called sandbox DM is just...um...doing random stuff but is NOT trying to make a good game.

Zarrgon

2018-03-31, 12:40 PM

So you believe that the real world is a set of fixed set paths that get triggered and then reach their conclusions no matter what?

The 'real world' has nothing to do with the game though....

Darth Ultron

2018-03-31, 01:20 PM

I think a discussion about whether or not they are "well-written" is missing the point.

The fact is that these adventures do exist, they are extremely common and therefore deserve to be categorized. Simply calling them "poorly written" isn't enough, as things can be poorly written in any number of ways.

Just because some adventures are bad, you just want to lump all adventures as bad?

And that is the most stupid definition of linear of them all. This essentially makes everything that players do in a RPG linear and thus all games ever are linear. Which, incidentally, makes it into a meaningless phrase. As I prefer meaningful phrases, I choose to find a definition which DOES NOT include everything.

That is exactly my point though: All TRPGs are Linear(making linear a meaningless phrase).

Players who do enjoy the linear type games will follow the DMs story-arrows and walk through the door. Those that do not enjoy linear games might not, and the game will most likely either result in railroading from the DM OR boredom as nothing happens.

But your just talking about the players being jerks here. Whatever the DM says the players just say ''whatever'' and ignore it or do the opposite.

No, he is not. But at the same time, the linear adventure DM might have nothing planned for how to progress the adventure when the characters do walk away. Since they will miss the encounter where they would have gotten the letter clue off the dead body to lead them to the warehouse at midnight when the crime boss they were hunting was making a trade and...

Right....and this is where you see the difference between a good DM and an average DM and a bad DM.

The average and bad DM's are just lost because the players did not find the ''one clue''...and game goes off the rails and crashes and burns..and the players are all happy they ruined the game.

The good DM, is at least using the three clues for each thing idea, plus a dozen other ways to make things happen.

It's a simple matter of structure. A sandbox game means that players can choose to tackle content in whatever order they wish. A linear game isn't going to allow players to completely ditch the adventure they're following in pursuit of facing something else. And this isn't a criticism of linear games or anything, so don't think I'm saying it's bad that linear games have a degree of linearity to them.

But this is comparing Apples and Oranges.

In ALL TRPGs players can choose to tackle content in whatever order they wish. The ONLY way this is NOT true, is if the DM is a JERK.

And tossing aside an adventure is just a jerk move by the players. Now sure, players think this is the greatest thing ever. The Dm puts some work into making the game...the players pretend to play along for a while..then are like *supprise DM* we toss it all out! HAHAHAHAH!

Not necessarily! Yes, a plot hook or quest in a sandbox game can have a detailed linear framework to it. But there's literally nothing stopping the DM from planning out different consequences or ways to solve a problem. This does not make it a random mess.

It's not a mess only because it stops being the so called sandbox and becomes a typical linear game.

So you either have to deal with the "bandit adventure" and/or the "ghoul adventure" (to phrase it like DU), or you can kick verisimilitude into the bin because you don't have any verisimilitude in your setting and dealing with that stuff means absolutely nothing, because it doesn't effect any meaningful changes.

Seems right to me.

In the normal linear game all background actions will continue if the characters take no action related to them. The bandits in the north will raid and the ghouls to the south will attack and eat. Game world events don't just pause when the players decide not to do anything about them.

Xuc Xac

2018-03-31, 03:17 PM

Well, this is the basic problem with the so called sandbox idea: it hostile against the DM doing anything to effect the characters.

It's not hostile to the DM. It's just not how it works. Do you think soccer is hostile to people with hands because you're not supposed to grab the ball and carry it?

Just take a simple action: The Dm has some thugs attack the characters.

Why does the DM have thugs attack the party?

People don't like your linear example because it feels too much like the quantum ogre. It doesn't matter where you go or what you do, you get attacked by thugs because that's the next scene in the story so it's thug attack time. They prefer the sandbox way of "thugs attack if you give them opportunity and motive". They can try to avoid the thugs by staying away from them or trying to stay on their good side.

Some people prefer the predestination of a linear game. In my experience, it's usually more fun for overly cautious players. They want exciting adventures but they're afraid of dying and losing so they avoid all the dangers in a sandbox. They prefer linear games where danger comes to them or they're forced into dangerous situations by the DM ("Oh no! A terrible storm of poison acid lightning! Welp, I guess we'll have to take shelter in this scary looking Doom Cave. Oh no! A cave in! Welp, I guess we have to see where this tunnel goes and find another way out...").

1.Badwrongfunway- The DM, all by themselves on a whim or part of a evil DM plan has the thugs attack the players. EVERYONE just goes crazy and whines and screams and complains and says this is wrong.

It's not necessarily bad but it can easily turn into railroading, which is the extreme form that most people don't like. In a long-running campaign, it also starts to strain credulity. In a one-shot adventure, of course the mole men breach the surface in the village where we're staying. That's what the adventure is about. After a whole campaign of that, it starts to look ridiculous that all these incredible things just keep happening to the PCs no matter where they go.

It's like "Murder, She Wrote". If you watch one episode, it's an interesting murder investigation in a small town. If you watch a whole season, you'll start to wonder how this small town can possibly have so many murders: one half of the population murdered the other half and the same mystery writer lady solved all the cases. And then when she goes on vacation, there's a murder there too!

2.The Cool Sandbox Way- The DM just sits and waits for the players to do something to trigger the thug attack, and then and only then, can the thug attack happen. EVERYONE cheers and says this is the bast game 4ever!

People like it because it makes sense. Thugs only attack when you are in a time and place where they can attack you. They don't just appear because the DM decreed it's thug attack time.

Some people don't like this because they want a story and they'll flounder around trying to figure out what they're "supposed to do" to trigger the next cut scene, but there isn't one pre-planned for them to trigger.

But, how is this not the same thing?

The so called linear game is a normal DM trying to make a good game.

The so called sandbox DM is just...um...doing random stuff but is NOT trying to make a good game.

They're both trying to make a good game, but they aren't trying to make the same game. Shepherd's pie and Dutch apple pie are both delicious pies, but if you stick an apple in your shepherd's pie, you're doing it wrong. Making an apple pie without a big chunk of mutton isn't an insult to shepherds. That's just how it's done.

Linear games can be good. They're ideal for single session games or episodic games. They're good for players that don't have a lot of time and just want to get to the action and resolve a self-contained situation quickly. They're also good for cinematic games where nobody important dies in the opening scenes and you're guaranteed to have a cool final confrontation with the villain at the climax.

Sandbox games can also be good. They're good for players who want to immerse themselves in another world and explore. They can have adventures but they aren't Linear. Linear in the context of RPG adventures means "advancing according to paths scripted in advance". It doesn't mean "happening in sequence" because that goes without saying.

Robert E. Howard's stories about Conan are good examples of sandbox adventures. He brings everything on himself. He hears that Gwahlur has a fabulous treasure so he makes a plan to find out where they keep it so he can steal it. He goes to sea and runs into pirates, gets captured, leads a mutiny, and takes over until he gets bored and quits piracy to become a cossack. He builds his reputation as a warrior because there's more money in being a mercenary general than in being a mercenary soldier. Eventually he gets an army in the right time and place to lead a coup and seize a throne for himself.

Sometimes he has a linear DM who tries to railroad him but it doesn't work: in "Red Nails", he meets a dragon outside a mysterious walled city. Instead of being railroaded into the city by the dragon, he just fights it and kills it. He goes into the city because of his own curiosity. The crazy inhabitants are in the middle of a decades long civil war and they want him to join them and help tip the balance of the war since he can't leave the city anyway. Why can't he leave? Because the dragons kill anyone who goes outside. Conan isn't having any of that railroading either. He only saw one dragon out there and he killed it, and he's not worried about running into any more on the way out. He fights in their war because he's personally ticked off by the other side. Then he leaves after it's over.

In the Tower of the Elephant, he goes in to steal a treasure and meets an alien who's being held captive by an evil wizard. He frees the alien so it can get revenge on the wizard while Conan watches. In a linear game, the DM probably would have tried to arrange a final battle between Conan and the wizard because it would be more exciting, even though Conan has no reason to fight the wizard.

Lovecraft's stories are good examples of linear games. In "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", will the narrator escape from the deep ones or get captured? It doesn't matter, because the ending will be the same either way (no spoilers, but read it and you'll see that the ending is fixed). The important thing is that we get to have scary chases, fish monsters, and hear some colorful background information about the world.

Max_Killjoy

2018-03-31, 04:33 PM

The 'real world' has nothing to do with the game though....

If the real world features complex cause-and-effect interplay between the various actors and actions involved, and doesn't involve linear triggered paths, why would the fictional / secondary world be any different?

jayem

2018-03-31, 05:29 PM

If the real world features complex cause-and-effect interplay between the various actors and actions involved, and doesn't involve linear triggered paths, why would the fictional / secondary world be any different?

It's worse than that. In the real world we're part of the system. So it could be the case that a hyper-deterministic viewpoint is correct (there would be issues with QM, it can't be pure hidden variables, and even Newtonian would be chaotic).

But the RPG has the PC's with a direct connection outside the system, (subject to the players having any meaningful* choice), so from the in-game-universe there is something that is something clearly not determined purely by in universe* (but at least covers whether the Player is hungry).

And if the real world is not actually deterministic at the player level/duration then it follows that the RPG is not deterministic in a real-world perspective too.

*Both of these could be false, in e.g. a railroaded game or if an RPG was as interactive as Conway's game of life.

jayem

2018-03-31, 05:59 PM

@Max:

You don´t notice the contradiction here, right?

When you go full "SimWorld" mode, time and causality happens. Every game element you trigger will follow its set path (railroad) to its conclusion based on its natural simulated behavior and goals.
That note or less means that each game element will follow a very linear path unless interacted with. (If left unchecked, the ghouls will attack and convert the thorp, then attack and convert the nearby manor, then attack and convert the mage tower....The bandits will capture the alchemist caravan, then will firebomb a nearby village into submission, then will poison the fort and take over....)
That actually is plausible behavior within the parameters of a simulation, not "Ghouls kill village. Over".

So you either have to deal with the "bandit adventure" and/or the "ghoul adventure" (to phrase it like DU), or you can kick verisimilitude into the bin because you don't have any verisimilitude in your setting and dealing with that stuff means absolutely nothing, because it doesn't effect any meaningful changes.

Maybe.
If things are exactly the same and then recreated exactly and things are deterministic. And the Players don't do anything to interact.
Once the players interact though that premise is broken with waves of disturbances flying out.
And the further down the chain you go the more interactions are that will reshape the stream. So yes if the players don't go near the ghouls or village it might be inevivitable it falls. But by the time you get to the alchemist caravan, the players may have bought the goods, raided the caravan, destroyed the customer, defended the manor, defended the village, defended the tower, destroyed the fort (letting the bandits capture it early), beaten the bandits, distracted the bandits, or ...

So yes you can exactly predict at a sufficient distance away (for a moderate time, e.g. Columbus doesn't have any effect on the Indians till he lands). And you can predict closely with a good chance of being mostly right (the players probably will fight the bandits).

Darth Ultron

2018-03-31, 11:16 PM

Why does the DM have thugs attack the party?

Well, it could be any number of reasons, but a simple one is to just rob them.

People don't like your linear example because it feels too much like the quantum ogre. It doesn't matter where you go or what you do, you get attacked by thugs because that's the next scene in the story so it's thug attack time. They prefer the sandbox way of "thugs attack if you give them opportunity and motive". They can try to avoid the thugs by staying away from them or trying to stay on their good side.

But it's a quantum ogre in a sandbox too. If the DM wants to do a thug attack, they can make up anything to get the players to say it's ''ok''. But that makes it a bit pointless.

It's like "Murder, She Wrote". If you watch one episode, it's an interesting murder investigation in a small town. If you watch a whole season, you'll start to wonder how this small town can possibly have so many murders: one half of the population murdered the other half and the same mystery writer lady solved all the cases. And then when she goes on vacation, there's a murder there too!

Well, this is more campaign and adventure design. A good DM will spread stuff out across the game world...and beyond...and make it different each time.....assuming the players want that. Lots of TV shows like CSI are popular, and some players do want to do the same thing basically..over and over and over again.

People like it because it makes sense. Thugs only attack when you are in a time and place where they can attack you. They don't just appear because the DM decreed it's thug attack time.

But this is just nitpicking at best, and the players trying to control the game at worst.

Some people don't like this because they want a story and they'll flounder around trying to figure out what they're "supposed to do" to trigger the next cut scene, but there isn't one pre-planned for them to trigger.

I agree this is a problem, but this is a DM problem.

I don't think you can ever say a novel or book story is a sandbox....the medium is just to different.

Xuc Xac

2018-04-01, 12:13 AM

Well, it could be any number of reasons, but a simple one is to just rob them.

Why does he DM want to rob them? That seems unusually adversarial.

But it's a quantum ogre in a sandbox too. If the DM wants to do a thug attack, they can make up anything to get the players to say it's ''ok''. But that makes it a bit pointless.

In a sandbox, the DM doesn't want to do a thug attack. The DM just wants to simulate the world. If the PCs go into robber thug territory, the DM will roll some dice to see if the thugs notice them (this could be a perception check by a posted lookout or a random encounter check to see if the PCs cross paths with a thug patrol or a variety of other techniques) and decide if the thugs want to attack (considering how confident the thugs are in their position and numbers, the PCs' apparent toughness to wealth ratio, "first impression" reaction checks, etc.).

Well, this is more campaign and adventure design. A good DM will spread stuff out across the game world...and beyond...and make it different each time....

This still runs into the Weirdness Magnet problem, i.e. "Why does this stuff keep happening to us?" Unless the PCs actually have some kind of Weirdness Magnet trait (some games do have that as an option).

But this is just nitpicking at best, and the players trying to control the game at worst.

Players trying to avoid an ambush by staying away from them is not "players trying to control the game". That's just players playing their characters as people with Wisdom scores you can't count on one hand.

Florian

2018-04-01, 12:58 AM

@Max:

The real world is a very complex system that's already in motion for quite some time. Still, being inside it, we still don't know whether the deterministic viewpoint is right or wrong, whether kharma, kismet or deus vult exist or not. For us, being inside the system, it doesn't really matter.

But take a look at some alternate history speculative fiction. This picks out top level events that cause the big ripples that will effect anything else and try to figure out how it would look like when the path of history would have branched differently. "Fatherland" is a good example, as are the board game "Tannhäuser" and the video game "Red Alert".

As creator and "god" of the game world, you determine the paths of those top level events and the players have the power to enact the "what if?" scenario that will branch off of it.

@jayem:

Some pages back, I've given an example of a L5R scenario involving 10 days to an assassination attempt that will succeed. That's a pretty predictable time frame, anything beyond that isn't, because t would have to take into account what exactly happened in these 10 days and how the players interacted with anything in this time. That would be the needed data to plot the path further.

@Xuc Xac:

Again the question: Is your world absolutely static and lifeless? Does nothing happen in it by itself?

We had the example with killing two of the three Blue Wizards, what happens with the third, how will you determine what it will do, what will come out of this situation?

Same when your players uncover the fabled "Sword of Air". Will nobody be tempted to steal it from the party, now that it has been found? Won´t agents of Tsuthogga show up and try to buy it, bribe them, dupe them into using it or start summoning hordes of Hezrous to kill them?

Xuc Xac

2018-04-01, 01:46 AM

@Xuc Xac:

Again the question: Is your world absolutely static and lifeless? Does nothing happen in it by itself?

We had the example with killing two of the three Blue Wizards, what happens with the third, how will you determine what it will do, what will come out of this situation?

Same when your players uncover the fabled "Sword of Air". Will nobody be tempted to steal it from the party, now that it has been found? Won´t agents of Tsuthogga show up and try to buy it, bribe them, dupe them into using it or start summoning hordes of Hezrous to kill them?

It's only been mentioned 2 or 3 times (per page) in this thread, so maybe you missed it. Nothing is static. The whole point of a sandbox is that the world keeps moving even when the PCs aren't there to watch it. NPCs have their own plans and goals and do stuff when the PCs aren't there.

If there are 3 Blue Wizards and the PCs kill two of them, the 3rd one will probably act differently than he would have if the other two were still alive. What he does well depend on his personality, goals, and knowledge. Does he know the other 2 are dead? How does he feel about that? Is he angry or happy about it? Does he even care? Does he know the PCs did it?

The same with the "Sword of Air". Does anybody know what it is or that the PCs have it? Is it easy to recognize and are the PCs waving it around in view of anyone who might recognize it? NPCs have their own goals and make their own moves in the world. I'm not familiar with this "fabled" item, but if word gets out about it and it's valuable, I'm sure there is a wide variety of interested parties who would like to get it.

Max_Killjoy

2018-04-01, 08:29 AM

@Max:

The real world is a very complex system that's already in motion for quite some time. Still, being inside it, we still don't know whether the deterministic viewpoint is right or wrong, whether kharma, kismet or deus vult exist or not. For us, being inside the system, it doesn't really matter.

But take a look at some alternate history speculative fiction. This picks out top level events that cause the big ripples that will effect anything else and try to figure out how it would look like when the path of history would have branched differently. "Fatherland" is a good example, as are the board game "Tannhäuser" and the video game "Red Alert".

As creator and "god" of the game world, you determine the paths of those top level events and the players have the power to enact the "what if?" scenario that will branch off of it.

@jayem:

Some pages back, I've given an example of a L5R scenario involving 10 days to an assassination attempt that will succeed. That's a pretty predictable time frame, anything beyond that isn't, because t would have to take into account what exactly happened in these 10 days and how the players interacted with anything in this time. That would be the needed data to plot the path further.

Karma, kismet, and deus vult are unfalsifiable assertions, and inconsistent with what evidence is obtainable, so I see no reason to waste time wondering that they might be real in the real world.

Furthermore, I don't include them in games I run. Full stop. I don't do fate, destiny, karma, or determinism. Things don't happen until they happen, and they happen for identifiable, causal reasons that only reach certainty the moment they actually come together in each moment.

Those alternate history "big changes" don't create long inevitable paths -- they just close and open different doors, change the odds, etc, much of which could be undone by other events.

And... the L5R scenario of the assassination attempt that WILL succeed... exactly the sort of thing that should be utterly avoided unless it's purely background material that the PCs have ZERO involvement in. If the PCs are at all involved in the events, you're making them passive spectators to what YOU want to happen, and should probably go write a novel or something instead.

Max_Killjoy

2018-04-01, 08:53 AM

It's only been mentioned 2 or 3 times (per page) in this thread, so maybe you missed it. Nothing is static. The whole point of a sandbox is that the world keeps moving even when the PCs aren't there to watch it. NPCs have their own plans and goals and do stuff when the PCs aren't there.

If there are 3 Blue Wizards and the PCs kill two of them, the 3rd one will probably act differently than he would have if the other two were still alive. What he does well depend on his personality, goals, and knowledge. Does he know the other 2 are dead? How does he feel about that? Is he angry or happy about it? Does he even care? Does he know the PCs did it?

The same with the "Sword of Air". Does anybody know what it is or that the PCs have it? Is it easy to recognize and are the PCs waving it around in view of anyone who might recognize it? NPCs have their own goals and make their own moves in the world. I'm not familiar with this "fabled" item, but if word gets out about it and it's valuable, I'm sure there is a wide variety of interested parties who would like to get it.

Exactly -- and the setup doesn't even have to be pure absolute sandbox for that to be true of the way the setting works.

I keep getting the impression that some participants in these discussions look at the settings ("secondary worlds", fictional worlds, whatever term) of RPGs as places that either just stop moving when the PCs aren't around to observe the movement, or proceed apace regardless or in in spite of whatever the PCs do.

jayem

2018-04-01, 09:21 AM

@Max:
Some pages back, I've given an example of a L5R scenario involving 10 days to an assassination attempt that will succeed. That's a pretty predictable time frame, anything beyond that isn't, because t would have to take into account what exactly happened in these 10 days and how the players interacted with anything in this time. That would be the needed data to plot the path further.

Just found it, taking the bit that puzzle me still.
"Once you [and the players] begin to engage with it...it will turn linear by default because if not interacted with by the players, it will turn to a certain result"
Which seems a bit odd.

"Once you [and the players] begin to engage with it...it is linear by default because [b]even when interacted with by the players, it will turn to a certain result", makes perfect sense, though only describes some games (I.E linear ones)

"If the players do not engage with it...it will turn linear by default because [b]if not interacted with by the players, it will turn to a certain result" makes perfect sense (though I'd want to include indirect effects, in Red Alert Einstein didn't interact with Stalin, he interacted only with Hitler*).

But what you have seems a bit like
"Once a boy plays with it, it becomes a girls toy, because if no boy wasn't played with it it would only be played with by girls." which seems backward. Unless I misunderstand you.

*You then have the 2 outcomes of RA and on the allied victory the 2 outcomes of RA2 (which are not determined till the player acts). And then RA3 as a third earlier branch. All of which are yet to be determined by the player (and that's where the players actions are limited to chosing their side-and completing set missions, imagine what it would be like if each mission had 2 outcomes)

Darth Ultron

2018-04-01, 12:57 PM

Why does he DM want to rob them? That seems unusually adversarial.

No it's not. The game and game reality is all about things, both good and bad, but mostly bad, happening to the characters.

You are showing the Players VS DM bias when you think it's an attack and it's wrong for the DM to have anything in the game ever attack the players.

In a sandbox, the DM doesn't want to do a thug attack. The DM just wants to simulate the world. If the PCs go into robber thug territory, the DM will roll some dice to see if the thugs notice them (this could be a perception cmeheck by a posted lookout or a random encounter check to see if the PCs cross paths with a thug patrol or a variety of other techniques) and decide if the thugs want to attack (considering how confident the thugs are in their position and numbers, the PCs' apparent toughness to wealth ratio, "first impression" reaction checks, etc.).

And now you are saying a sandbox game is a random game. If the DM is just rolling dice and letting dice decide everything for them: it is a random game.

This still runs into the Weirdness Magnet problem, i.e. "Why does this stuff keep happening to us?" Unless the PCs actually have some kind of Weirdness Magnet trait (some games do have that as an option).

This is, as many people don't get, the game is fiction. It won't make sense by the standards of reality. Will the PCs always be right in the middle of some wacky adventure sooner or later: Yes. That is the whole point of the game.

Players trying to avoid an ambush by staying away from them is not "players trying to control the game". That's just players playing their characters as people with Wisdom scores you can't count on one hand.

It's more of the players just being jerks. The players can avoid everything in the game, and then nothing will happen for the entire game play.

Lorsa

2018-04-01, 03:05 PM

The whole discussion also contradicts itself when it comes to linearity. Either the sandbox is a static construct without any moving parts besides the one the players interact with right now, or actions will lead to consequences and that will lead to linear behavior (example: two starting hooks: Bandits raid caravans on the south road, ghouls plague a village on the north road. Does something happen when you go for one hook in preference to the other, yes or no?).

There is a clear disconnect between our respective views of "linearity" or "linear adventures" in RPGs. You seem to follow DU's definition that a "linear game" is any game where anything happens?

To make our communication easier, can you describe what YOU call the type of adventure we refer to as "linear adventure", since the word "linear" seem to be such a big hang-up? I think I asked that before but never got an answer.

Just because some adventures are bad, you just want to lump all adventures as bad?

How is that even remotely what I said?

i said that since adventures can be bad in many different ways, it is not enough to call what you refer to as "railroads" as "bad adventures". Even non-railroads can be bad, so that means we will fail to specify how they are bad.

My point was that you need to break apart the box "bad adventures" and make smaller boxes with different categories.

If you want to place "railroads" in one of those boxes, that is fine by me. It's not really good as an objective measure though, as some players enjoy railroads and find those adventures to be awesome.

That is exactly my point though: All TRPGs are Linear(making linear a meaningless phrase).

Then why do you insist on using that word? If it's meaningless, stop using it!

Or, alternatively, assume that since WE are using it, we want to convey a meaning which is NOT meaningless and try to understand OUR meaning. Then, if you want a different word for the concept, just say "Aha! You mean opilositorium adventures! Now I know what you mean, I just call them something else!"

But your just talking about the players being jerks here. Whatever the DM says the players just say ''whatever'' and ignore it or do the opposite.

The players are jerks for deciding not to go into a specific room? I thought you said that in any TRPG, the players can do ANYTHING (within reason). Which way is it?

Right....and this is where you see the difference between a good DM and an average DM and a bad DM.

The average and bad DM's are just lost because the players did not find the ''one clue''...and game goes off the rails and crashes and burns..and the players are all happy they ruined the game.

The good DM, is at least using the three clues for each thing idea, plus a dozen other ways to make things happen.

Basically, what you are saying here is "good DMs don't run linear adventures". Got it. Actually, I do agree with that.

In ALL TRPGs players can choose to tackle content in whatever order they wish. The ONLY way this is NOT true, is if the DM is a JERK.

Translation effort.

Everyone collective phrase: "Linear adventure"
Darth Ultron phrase: "DM being a jerk"

See how easy this is?

Xuc Xac

2018-04-01, 03:06 PM

You are showing the Players VS DM bias...

It's more of the players just being jerks.

If you want to talk about "Players VS DM bias", only one person in this entire dumpster fire of a thread has claimed that one side of the game table are "jerks".

Frozen_Feet

2018-04-01, 04:03 PM

@Lorsa: a sanbox can easily contain linear parts - play any of the named examples I've given earlier in this thread (Exile 3, Star Control 2, Betrayal at Krondor).

"Sanbox" is not a discreet thing which sits on the other end of a spectrum from "linear" - sanbox is a catch-all term for any game designed to support a free-roaming player driven playstyle. The actual structure of a sandbox could be linear with loops (=one linear main quest with optional sidequest taken in any order), multi-linear (many linear plots engaged parallel or in any order), branching (one plot with mutually exclusive choices), branching convergent (as before but some branches combine, leading to the same result), or any combination.

We've had an equivalent discussion before, just in terms of player agency.

Darth Ultron

2018-04-01, 11:25 PM

The players are jerks for deciding not to go into a specific room? I thought you said that in any TRPG, the players can do ANYTHING (within reason). Which way is it?

This is just a style thing. I ask the the players play the game and not be disruptive; you give then freedom to do whatever and love when they disrupt things and ruin the game.

Basically, what you are saying here is "good DMs don't run linear adventures". Got it. Actually, I do agree with that.

Yes, Good Dm don't run Linear Adventures, of the type where you give the word linear a wacky definition that you like.

But all Good DMs run Linear Adventures of the type using the dictionary definition of the word linear.

"Sanbox" is not a discreet thing which sits on the other end of a spectrum from "linear" - sanbox is a catch-all term for any game designed to support a free-roaming player driven playstyle. The actual structure of a sandbox could be linear with loops (=one linear main quest with optional sidequest taken in any order), multi-linear (many linear plots engaged parallel or in any order), branching (one plot with mutually exclusive choices), branching convergent (as before but some branches combine, leading to the same result), or any combination.

Seems like a so called sandbox game can be anything, or nothing, kind of like the phrase 'sandbox' is meaningless.

Xuc Xac

2018-04-01, 11:44 PM

There seem to be some typos in that post. Let me clean it up.

This is just a style thing. I ask the the players play the game and not be disruptive to follow my script and not to deviate too much from it; you give then them freedom to do whatever and love when they disrupt things and ruin the game make their own decisions about how to roleplay their characters.

Yes. I'd say that's a fair assessment. Different strokes for different folks.

Florian

2018-04-02, 01:05 AM

There is a clear disconnect between our respective views of "linearity" or "linear adventures" in RPGs. You seem to follow DU's definition that a "linear game" is any game where anything happens?

To make our communication easier, can you describe what YOU call the type of adventure we refer to as "linear adventure", since the word "linear" seem to be such a big hang-up? I think I asked that before but never got an answer.

Oh, sorry, I thought I had answered that, but this discussion is moving pretty fast and the topics are getting broader.

I´d call that "limited" (or limiting) adventure design.

Take classic Dragonlance and compare two statements:
1) This is how the heroes of the lance are going to stop Takhisis.
2) This is how Takhisis will win the war of the lance unless stopped by the heroes.

Both have something in common, as they have a past (backstory), a starting point (game begins) and the future is already plotted out. But there the similarities end.

(1) is "limited", because it sets the path that the heroes have got to follow along the plot to get the desired outcome. (2) sets the path for all the elements in the game world that are under gm control, with a predetermined future that will constantly change based on how and why the heroes act and interact with it.

For (1), Krynn is just a backdrop giving context. It is not there to be interacted with and that can lead to railroading, when players want to leave the path set for them. For (2), Krynn is the game world and you can do whatever you want.

Just found it, taking the bit that puzzle me still.

Ok. The non-hostile Razortusk orc tribe is fleeing their ancestral lands and head out towards Port Wander, following the vision of their shaman, to seek refuge there. Their starting position is hex A11 and they will follow the road along 5 different hexes, which will take one month. Once in Port Wander, they will settle in the tent camp outside the city. That is their path.

1) If you don't meet them in A11, the whole thing is moot because it doesn't make sense to track "invisible" things (except maybe the main plot, see example above).
2) If you meet them at A11, they will enter the "game world" and start following their path, i.e. if you are in Port Wander in exactly one month, you can notice the tribe arriving and settle in the tent city.
3) If you interact with them, this interaction will set them on a new path, i.e. convince the shaman that Fort Brave will need some capable mercenaries, which is a better living then the tent city, will alter the path so that they now start at A11, will take the road halfway over to Port Wander and then take the side road down to the fort, where they will start as mercenaries in 3 weeks.

@Max:

Do you know the movie "11:14"? Consider this as a very complex plot that tracks the actions of 13 characters and how that will lead up to what happens at 11:14, with multiple crossing paths and intersections on the way there.
Ignore it, be only a spectator or engage in any non-intrusive action ("I go to the McDonalds and eat some burgers", with the McD having nothing to do with any of it) and it will turn out exactly as written.
Start interacting with it in a meaningful way, everything changes.