Lots of shit going on / Sandboxes

[squeen]

Yep. It's not a strange thing to say. It's pre-determined that kobolds are in the cave system A of Caves of Chaos. It's predetermined that if they walk down the passage in Cave A there is a pit trap there...because its written in the module.

Well it's about time your joined in Malrex! I've been missing you.

Unfortunately you're way off-point about "pre-determined" in this context. Object-perminance is your pre-determined.

Having Cave A swapped with Cave D by the DM because he thinks the kobold's are more interesting (or level-appropriate) is the Inevitable Ogre.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Having Cave A swapped with Cave D by the DM because he thinks the kobold's are more interesting (or level-appropriate) is the Inevitable Ogre.

If your party didn't know which cave had kobolds and were just picking random places to enter, what exactly is the harm?

 

[squeen]

To no one's surprise, Isle of Dread is going to suck if your party just decides to build a raft and float out to sea, and City-State isn't nearly as awe-inspiring when the party refuses to enter the front gates.

DP, you are a master at obscuring points you don't like, but it doesn't really gain you anything. The difference is, of course, "a plot that can't be side stepped".

Enter City-State or B2 (player's choice), but also leave when you'd like. Live to fight another day.

Clearly, I am wasting my breath again. (Told you I wasn't too bright.)

Just label me an outlier/weirdo if that make you feel comfortable. Doesn't bother me.
(Yeesh! You can lead a horse mule to water...)

 

[squeen]

If your party didn't know which cave had kobolds and were just picking random places to enter, what exactly is the harm?

None. Do what you will. Stick with your current blueprint---nothing else to see in the Big Wide World.
OK. Moving right along...

 

[DangerousPuhson]

The difference is, of course, "a plot that can't be side stepped".

In the majority of modules, the dungeon IS the plot. If you leave the dungeon, you are essentially putting the plot on hiatus to follow some different, improvised plot. Even sandboxes have borders - those hex maps end at some point, after which the DM is left totally on his own if the players cross that threshold. In campaigns, that's generally fine - players are expected to pick away at locations in their own way... but we are not talking about campaigns. We are talking about adventures, which are but smaller segments of a campaign.

The difference is that a campaign exists persistently, shaped by player action, but an adventure which is ignored is essentially dead... sure, you can throw vestiges of the adventure into the greater campaign (Lareth doing anything beyond sitting quietly in a room, for instance), but you're not actually playing through the adventure, and so therefore are not enjoying the part of the game which was specially designed to be enjoyable (one hopes).

 

[EOTB]

Here's a thread journaling a great game that does what some think is "fringe".

Knights & Knaves Alehouse - Login

knights-n-knaves.com

Edit - looks like you have to have a membership to view it. Nothing I can do about that, but it's a fantastic thread of doing rather than jaw-jaw.

 

[mAcular]

There's a distinction to be made between modules and campaigns.

A campaign world, where you're basically just free to wander wherever -- it's not really a big deal if you skip out on some locations.

But if it's a module, if you decided "we're all playing Tomb of Horrors tonight," then it makes sense that the players not going to the Tomb of Horrors would be a kind of strange thing to do. In fact, most adventures of this sort automatically start you at the dungeon entrance, with you going to it being assumed and built in.

Now, if you're inside the module and you're forced to Quantum Ogre because players went left instead of right and missed all the good stuff -- that seems like a problem with the module's writing to me. Why would it be written in such a way that it's so easy to miss everything that's actually in the module?

If the players just ignore the whole dungeon it's one thing, but if they're in it and a choice can make them miss out on everything then it probably needs to be rewritten to make it so the content can still be useful somehow.

But in any case, it sounds like DP is talking about the scenario of "we're playing ToH tonight" and the players skipping it? If you have a module then from the start there's somewhere you're "supposed" to go -- the module's contents.

If you take it and just drop it into a wider campaign world where anyone can go anywhere and it's just another location, then it doesn't sound bad to me, on the other hand.

 

[EOTB]

"modules" are just locations having events. In the fringe style of play DMs make up/buy locations without an implied social contract that if they make one up/buy one, the players will play it.

 

[Beoric]

Anyway...

Let's say you're wandering around a dungeon. As the DM, you've pre-prepared an encounter with a monster. But you haven't decided where or when the encounter will occur. All you know is that at some point while the party wanders around from room to room, you WILL have them encounter it. You'll just decide on-the-spot when that time is. So in a way, you're still preparing, but the last bit of preparation is left to be determined live (improvising). This is similar to the ogre example, no? It is not nearly as limiting though.

I suppose you could even mechanize it, and just turn it into the first random encounter they get automatically, or the second, or whatever you want it to be in the order.

If you determine that the PCs are going to have the pre-prepared encounter no matter what choices they make, then you are negating their agency and you have a Quantum Ogre. If you put a pre-prepared encounter on the list of random encounters, and it comes up because the party is pixel-bitching, then they encounter it because of the choices they have made and the players continue to have agency. I suppose, if your pre-prepared encounter is with a particularly active wandering monster, you could give it priority on the random encounter list (a monster with a right of first refusal?) and it would still be encountered because of the players' actions.

Do be clear, I'm just trying to keep the definition clear; while I have an opinion, I have no interest in continuing to discuss whether a Quantum Ogre is a good of bad thing. Make whatever decisions you want, I just think you should make those decisions consciously.

@DP of course modules define the contents of the module at the start of the module. Many modules, especially old ones, will also point out that the monsters will react to intrusions, and dungeons will restock. B2 goes on about it at length, here is an example:

TRIBAL ALLIANCES AND WARFARE: You might allow player characters to somehow become aware that there is a constant fighting going on between the goblins and hobgoblins on one side and the orcs, sometimes with gnoll allies, on the other - with the kobolds hoping to be forgotten
by all, and the bugbears picking off any stragglers who happen by. With this knowledge, they might be able to set tribes to fighting one another, and then the adventurers can take advantage of the weakened state of the feuding humanoids. Be careful to handle this whole thing properly; it is a device you may use to aid players who are few in number but with a high level of playing skill. It will make it too easy if there are many players, or if players do not actually use wits instead of force when the opportunity presents itself.

MONSTERS LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE: Allow intelligent monsters (even those with only low intelligence) to learn from experience. If player characters use flaming oil against them, allow the monsters to use oil as soon as they can find some. If adventurers are always sneaking up on them, have the monsters set warning devices to alert them of intruders. If characters run from overwhelming numbers, have the monsters set up a ruse by causing a few to shout and make noise as if there were many coming, thus hopefully frightening off the intruders. This method of handling monsters is basic to becoming a good DM. Apply the principle wherever and whenever you have reason.

EMPTIED AREAS: When monsters are cleared out of an area, the place will be deserted for 1-4 weeks. If no further intrusion is made into the area, however, the surviving former inhabitants will return or else some other monster will move in. For instance, a thou1 might move into the minotaur’s cave complex (I.), bringing with him whatever treasure he has.

But even if you have all the monsters in stasis until the door their room is opened, the fact that they are predetermined does not in an of itself make them Quantum Ogres. They only become Quantum Ogres if it is predetermined that the party will encounter them even if the party chooses not to enter the room.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

But even if you have all the monsters in stasis until the door their room is opened, the fact that they are predetermined does not in an of itself make them Quantum Ogres.

Never said they were... we jumped off the Quantum Ogre topic a half-dozen posts back.

Wasn't this thread about sandboxes? This is all squeen's fault somehow.

 

[squeen]

This is all squeen's fault somehow.

Feels like I might have heard that before...somewhere...now, if I could only put my finger on who said it...did it rhyme with T-rex?...or was it Bronosaurous?...Mallosaurous?...

Oh well! ... Like my marbles, it's gone!

I accept the blame.