The state of Post-OSR content

[Beoric]

The difference between my games and KotB is that I have no Caves of Chaos waiting in the wings, because everything is invented as we go along.

I don't think any of us object to you making it up as you go. That is not a QO. We object when you predetermine an outcome, which is NOT making it up as you go.

Here's the problem with these arguments: you guys are seemingly incapable of looking at the issue through the eyes of a player in the moment, rather than a DM on a forum peeking out from behind the curtain of DM notes and dungeon maps. Stop arguing the merits/problems of a player-facing interface from the DM's point of view - it doesn't matter what the DM knows or doesn't know about the adventure; the only thing that matters is what the players experience in the game. Use THAT experience to define how you should feel about a game element, not the nitpicking of metagame things that players never see.

You are mistaken. It is my reactions when I am a player that cause me to have such strong feelings about this. When it has happened in the past, those DMs also thought they were smart enough that nobody would notice. Clearly they were wrong.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

You don't actually resolve anything with dice rolls and rules, if the resolution is the same either way.

Also, who says I don't let dice resolve actions? Do you think my monsters just survive until I choose to kill them? Do you think that Natural 20s are just "nah, it happens anyway" at my table?

Dice determine success, always. I don't know where you got the idea that they didn't.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I don't think any of us object to you making it up as you go. That is not a QO. We object when you predetermine an outcome, which is NOT making it up as you go.

I have something in one of my hands. You know this, because I have told you. I did not tell you which hand has the thing. I ask you to pick a hand. If you ask me to open my right hand, you won't see me opening my left hand because that's not what you've asked me to do. In fact, by having me open my right hand, you simultaneously choose to have me keep my left hand closed. So you can infer that I'm being fair and letting things play out as they are by opening my right hand, yes? Ah, but it's predetermined! I already know which hand has the thing. I open my right hand knowing that the thing isn't there. Now because you didn't find the thing, I put my hands behind my back, fiddle around a bit, and ask you again to pick a hand. Again, I know which hand has the thing - in fact, beyond that I even know exactly what the thing is. You pick another hand, this time left. I can say with confidence now that my left hand will open to reveal a jelly bean.

Do you then accuse me of always planning to open a hand with a jelly bean in it? Did I force the jellybean upon you, or did you choose which hand I opened?

Now imagine instead of a jellybean, I had just grabbed some random thing that happened to be close by, not even really looking at it. I know which hand it's in, but even I don't know what it is or how you'll react to it. That's the difference in an improvised game - I can generally sense where and when something will be, but I won't know what it truly is/becomes until my party gets there and interacts with things. The unknown thing in my hand is a floating element, which exists to you only if you pick the right hand that it's in.

It is my reactions when I am a player that cause me to have such strong feelings about this. When it has happened in the past, those DMs also thought they were smart enough that nobody would notice. Clearly they were wrong.

Your experience does not constitute my universal axiom. I'm sorry you had a shitty DM - maybe one day you'll have a good one who actually keeps parts of the game a secret from his players, like he's supposed to.

 

[HypthtcllySpkng]

No. My entire argument comes down to this: that whether something is railroading or is not railroading is inconsequential, unless you analyze it through the DM lens of game omniscience, where you KNOW the outcomes ahead of time (unlike your players who should not know the outcome, no matter what you insist). If you take the same situation and view it from a player's eyes, with partial information and no knowledge of what lies in the DM's notebooks, then it doesn't look/feel like a railroad; it just feels like playing D&D.

Your counterargument hinges on "well, the players will just know", to which I argue "well, they're not supposed to fucking know, that's why the DM has a screen and why Gary Gygax used to run his games from behind a filing cabinet". If your players already know what's in store for them, then how can you accuse my system of being a railroad when it's your players that already know what's on the path ahead (like stations along a railroad).

Let's see... Players could, I dunno, figure it out? Numerous people on this very thread have said that they're able to do so themselves, and I'll say that I am as well. DMs screens only go so far. You're operating with the logic that it's literally impossible for them to figure it out. No, the fuck, it isn't. And I'm not even responding to the idea that railroading is inconsequential. That's been discussed in a negative light by players and dms alike since the dawn of rpgs.

You falsely assume that because I have some ideas in mind for where the adventure is going, that I've gotten it all mapped out ahead of time and force my players to go through it. Again, not true - they are floating game elements; their manifestation is at my whim but is not guaranteed, because I only make manifest things that make sense in the system (that is, if I have an idea for a cool desert oasis encounter, I'm obviously not going to pull the party from an arctic tundra just to run it, because that manifestation is too jarring).

You assume that I implement every idea I think of, and that I am incapable of adapting the game to the player's choices. Not true - my game is guided by the players' choices at every step; I just resolve the game world in an organic way, using my ideas when I feel they fit. If my players want to bypass the Swamp of Doom, I don't force them to go to the Swamp of Doom - but I might have them encounter the Swamp Witch at a later date, perhaps re-skinned to be the Mountain Witch or something if it fits the game to do so. Very different thing than railroading.

I'm not actually assuming anything. You literally said that you determine you are going to use a particular element in a session regardless of what the players do. See your post from Friday at 8:24am.

Where the fuck are you even getting that from? Do you play at my table? Are you in my head, seeing what ideas I have or have not used?

No?

Then you're just pulling statements like this right out of your ass. I'll have you know I've killed far more "darlings" than I've birthed.

I'm getting that from the same post I mentioned before where you said: "if there's an especially good idea I've held onto for a while, then it's going to make it into my game, regardless of player choice."

In the same vein, maybe don't underestimate me? My players are always surprised by what happens in my games, because I myself don't even know what will happen until they get to the situation (I'm inventing the shit as we go along i.e. improvising it).

You're right. Maybe you're just better than all of us. I'll concede that point, though I'm skeptical.

Don't project your failings as a DM onto me, my dude. Just because your players can read you like a book, or you can't help but spill the beans about some upcoming event, or whatever reason they somehow magically know what you have planned, doesn't mean my players (or any other players, for that matter) know that stuff too.

I have no failings as a dm. I'm a god among mortals.

Also, who says I don't let dice resolve actions? Do you think my monsters just survive until I choose to kill them? Do you think that Natural 20s are just "nah, it happens anyway" at my table?

Dice determine success, always. I don't know where you got the idea that they didn't.

By saying that you determine the resolution, which you have stated several times and I'm apparently not the only one that seems to think so, you leave the impression that you have a mistaken view of the relationship between dice/rules and resolutions. Maybe it's just poor wording on your part.


If, as you said before in the before mentioned post, you do things regardless of the players choices, then you have a jelly bean in BOTH hands. and by that logic, yes, you always planned to open a hand with a jelly bean.
Again, that's going by what you said. There has to actually be an option wherein the jelly bean doesn't fucking appear for there to be resolution determined by chance and not by you.

 

[Beoric]

I have something in one of my hands. You know this, because I have told you. I did not tell you which hand has the thing. I ask you to pick a hand. If you ask me to open my right hand, you won't see me opening my left hand because that's not what you've asked me to do. In fact, by having me open my right hand, you simultaneously choose to have me keep my left hand closed. So you can infer that I'm being fair and letting things play out as they are by opening my right hand, yes? Ah, but it's predetermined! I already know which hand has the thing. I open my right hand knowing that the thing isn't there. Now because you didn't find the thing, I put my hands behind my back, fiddle around a bit, and ask you again to pick a hand. Again, I know which hand has the thing - in fact, beyond that I even know exactly what the thing is. You pick another hand, this time left. I can say with confidence now that my left hand will open to reveal a jelly bean.

Let's not forget that the exchange the prompted this latest round of the argument was as follows:

With your floating plot elements, do you determine that you are going to use a particular element in a given session regardless of what the players do, or do you have a bunch of elements out there and choose the element based on what the players do? Because the first is a QO but the second is not.

Yes, the first.

Yet you continue to justify QOs by giving examples of the ways in which you don't use QOs. A QO would be if, after I picked a hand, you transferred the jelly bean to that hand. You keep saying that is a fine thing to do, but most of your justifications are examples of ways in which you don't do it, and the remainder are that nobody is going to notice. Well, clearly, the first isn't a justification of anything, and I am skeptical of the second.

But even if the second is true because of your uncanny genius at DMing, it is still poor advice to give, because as you keep reminding us, the rest of us poor schlubs don't have your incredible skill. Since we can't match your uncanny talent, there is no way we average DMs can make use of what would otherwise be brilliant advice.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

If, as you said before in the before mentioned post, you do things regardless of the players choices, then you have a jelly bean in BOTH hands. and by that logic, yes, you always planned to open a hand with a jelly bean.
Again, that's going by what you said. There has to actually be an option wherein the jelly bean doesn't fucking appear for there to be resolution determined by chance and not by you.

Yet you continue to justify QOs by giving examples of the ways in which you don't use QOs. A QO would be if, after I picked a hand, you transferred the jelly bean to that hand.

I might have a jelly bean in both hands, I might not have one at all. You don't know, only I do. The idea is that reality becomes what I decide it becomes. It becomes reality to the players only when I decide to open both my hands and lay out the behind-the-scenes truth to all. In this thought experiment I ask you to pick a hand and then show you the hand you picked - in D&D, the analogy would be more complete if I only opened my hands behind my back and told you if it did or didn't contain the jelly bean, as a DM does whenever he describes anything to his players (because they're not meant to see the metagame stuff).

Fun fact: I don't actually have a jelly bean in my hands, but you are debating as though I did - reality has become what I've given you to work with, much as the players' reality becomes only what you give them to work with.

As for this whole thing:

You literally said that you determine you are going to use a particular element in a session regardless of what the players do.

This is a case-by-case basis, if the element in question fits the situation (and ONLY when it fits the situation). This is the difference: If I am positive that I will use something, I will use it in a way that's indistinguishable from the natural flow of the game anyway. My using the thing I said I would use is not the problem... the problem is if I were to use the thing in the wrong context, such as if the party was taking active measures to avoid it. In such a case, I adapt, and use it later in a slightly different way. Still makes it to the table, and unless my players develop psychic powers, I fail to see how they could deduce what was over the horizon if I've not given them any information to work with.

 

[Grützi]

A judge wakes up on monday morning and decides to sentence one guilty party to the hardest possible sentence this week.
Only the judge knows of his idea, he doesn't tell anyone, no one will ever find out.
The judge will only use his idea in an appropriate case but is otherwise determined to use the hardest possible sentence for that singular case... maybe its a jaywalker, maybe its a murderer. He'll know when it is time.

Is that a good judge or not?
I kinda feel like the underlying problem of this argument here is kinda the same as the above example

Don't want to step on anyones toes here ... I just think you are talking about two different things here: pragmatic vs idealistic

 

[DangerousPuhson]

A judge wakes up on monday morning and decides to sentence one guilty party to the hardest possible sentence this week.
Only the judge knows of his idea, he doesn't tell anyone, no one will ever find out.
The judge will only use his idea in an appropriate case but is otherwise determined to use the hardest possible sentence for that singular case... maybe its a jaywalker, maybe its a murderer. He'll know when it is time.

Is that a good judge or not?
I kinda feel like the underlying problem of this argument here is kinda the same as the above example

Think of it more like this, because it's more accurate to the DM's role:

God wakes up on Monday morning...
...
Is that a good God or not?

The reason I make the distinction is because a judge represents justice, which is designed to be as fair as we decide is possible.

God, on the other hand, represents the creation and the reality of the world, which is generally considered to be entirely unfair though still objectively neutral. And like God, a DM's whims are his own, and should be a mystery to the players.

It's an important distinction.

 

[HypthtcllySpkng]

Is the God me?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I'm a god among mortals.

Is the God me?

 

[HypthtcllySpkng]

I dunno man. I see the point that DMs are supposed to be able to craft the world and do as they please, to an extent, and there's a measure of planning that has to exist due to the nature of the game. But, there is a line, and it is ultimately a game.

Is the God good? Well, do the prayers of his worshippers get answered? Do they maintain the standard of character and righteousness and truth that is expected of them, and that they claim to maintain?

Let me ask this, if your players asked you directly not to because THEY felt it took away their agency, what would you do then?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

if your players asked you directly not to because

Asked me not to what?

 

[TerribleSorcery]

@TerribleSorcery uhhh... I don't know what to say to that, other than I hope you didn't spend much time on it?

I just googled "ASCII middle finger." Everyone needs a little course correction from time to time.

But this conversation has taken a turn that seems strange to me.
DP says his game is completely improvised. That isn't the same thing as the quantum ogre, IIRC. If people have objections to a completely on-the-fly campaign (DP said earlier that he spends ZERO hours on prep) then object to that. I would certainly feel strange if someone asked me to play their completely improvised game, but then again -- my life decisions are not to be emulated.

If DP is improvising each session, dealing with things as they come, then he can't really be accused of 'my precious enounter' thinking. How can there be an ordained outcome if he doesn't have anything planned out? I confess to more than a little curiosity about how a totally improvised campaign even *works*.

 

[squeen]

I have no failings as a dm. I'm a god among mortals.

This is wonderful news! I have SO many questions...

 

[Beoric]

I just googled "ASCII middle finger." Everyone needs a little course correction from time to time.

But this conversation has taken a turn that seems strange to me.
DP says his game is completely improvised. That isn't the same thing as the quantum ogre, IIRC. If people have objections to a completely on-the-fly campaign (DP said earlier that he spends ZERO hours on prep) then object to that. I would certainly feel strange if someone asked me to play their completely improvised game, but then again -- my life decisions are not to be emulated.

If DP is improvising each session, dealing with things as they come, then he can't really be accused of 'my precious enounter' thinking. How can there be an ordained outcome if he doesn't have anything planned out? I confess to more than a little curiosity about how a totally improvised campaign even *works*.

If you go a few rounds with him, you will find that DP asserts his game to be completely improvised when you point out that a quantum ogre denies choice to the players; and asserts that his game includes predetermined, unavoidable elements when you point out that he is not describing a quantum ogre.

In other words, the quantum ogre in his playstyle has its own quantum aspect, being both there and not there, depending upon what is most convenient for his argument at the time.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

My hypothesis is that is nearly universally is a bad thing, and I can point to examples from my experience, but I can't prove it.

And this one here pretty much summarizes the Beoric school of debate...

 

[Beoric]

And this one here pretty much summarizes the Beoric school of debate...

What's that, intellectual honesty?

For the record, everyone, here is a more complete quotation, as it is relevant to DP's comment:

I mean it should be self evident that, if the result is the same regardless of the players' choice, then the player's choice is meaningless and agency is negated. That really should not be an issue for serious debate.

I think it is possible to have a debate about whether the negation of player agency in this manner is a bad thing. My hypothesis is that is nearly universally is a bad thing, and I can point to examples from my experience, but I can't prove it.

And I haven't tried to prove it. I have spoken about my experience. I have expressed skepticism about your alleged successes. I have objected to your casting of everyone as an inferior DM. I have pointed out some of the flaws and circularity in your own argument. But I have not suggested that the goodness or badness of the negation of agency is objectively provable with the available evidence.

To be clear, nothing you have said on this forum convinces me that you are a better DM than me, or than anyone else who posts here. I categorically reject any argument that relies upon your superior skill as a DM to support it. And I am losing patience with your insults to me, other members of the forum, and anyone we have played with. I know you got offended the last time I said you weren't better than anyone else here, like being the same as us mere mortals was some sort of insult. Well, I have no patience for that. You are not better than the rest of us, period. I suggest you stop pushing that crap, because next time you make anyone else's DMing skill the topic of conversation, you will get as good as you give. Or better.

 

[The1True]

It's rough watching these debates get increasingly abstract. It was easy to follow at first but by the end, you're just attacking each other's points, becoming mired in semantics and getting more and more angry about it, which is pointless.
The core conceit of the Quantum Ogre argument is that you're supposed to broadcast information to your players so they can make informed decisions. I think that's what the Anti-QO faction is getting tied up in. They're assuming that DP's players are making decisions based on broadcast information and those decisions are being disregarded, which I don't believe is the case in his campaign. We havn't heard much more about it other than that it is improvisational and occasionally uses drop-in events where appropriate.
DP is playing devil's advocate (as usual) with a couple of holy shibboleths of the OSR; the Quantum Ogre and Railroads. Of course the world is painted in shades of grey. Of course there is an exception to every rule and DM's were born to break the rules.
Taking turns dismissing DP's campaign and then getting your backs up when he dismisses your own DM's (admittedly in less civil terms) is turning what was a tense but engaging debate into personal attacks (again). And in this case I suspect everyone is angrily agreeing with each other: Making decisions is fundamental to the game.
I think the actual point of contention might be that it sounds like, due to the improvised nature of his campaign, DP's players don't have a chance to make informed decisions. But we don't actually know that because everyone's been busy quoting each other and picking away at semantics. It sounds to me like he's reacting to his players decisions with a catalog of potential encounters. As long as they aren't specifically preordained (he happened to have an ogre-in-the-woods encounter; the players happened to decide to walk into the woods) it sounds alright to me. What I'm curious about is whether DP broadcasts results of the player's decisions in a way that allows them to choose something else if they don't like it?...

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Just to quickly point out,

Here's the clutch distinction: I define improvisation as being akin to a "floating" plot element - one that only comes into existence when I invent it and communicate it to my players. Everything in my game exists exactly where I intend it to exist. I consider the Quantum Ogre to be comparable, by design - a monster, or situation, or whatever other element that "floats" and settles into the game when needed.

This was my original comparison I made between QO and my improvised game. Note I said comparison (bolded for emphasis, and so people will actually read) - I didn't say "my improvised game is also a Quantum Ogre", the way that Beoric seems to skew my points. Now, pushing that out of the way...

It sounds to me like he's reacting to his players decisions with a catalog of potential encounters.

Finally, someone understands what the hell I'm talking about. Yes, floating encounters (which I used as an example of something which are comparable to Quantum Ogres) - a catalogue of ideas, encounters and environs, slotted into the game when appropriate, much like how I was arguing QOs should be deployed before I was taken on this irritating side-trek into mundanity.

I want this noted, for the record:

1) I play "traditional" D&D. I have two games on COVID-hiatus that will pick up again once restrictions lift; one group is in a homebrew campaign with materials I made for it in advance, the other group is in Undermountain doing the Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

2) I play a weekly improvised game of D&D, which differs from a normal game in only one way: I don't use any materials prepared beforehand. Yes, all the other stuff that's in a normal D&D game is there too - like choices and agency and all that other shit that makes you guys wet. The difference is that instead of going

"Opening the door? Well let's see, that's Room 15...hmmmm OK...yes... page 43... so, 'this room is triangular in shape and contains...'"

I say

"Opening the door? Ok, so you see...hmmm... a triangular-shaped room, and inside there is..."

That's it. That's the only difference in the improv game. I thought it might make a good example of a QO because nothing is firmly set anywhere specific unless I set it there, and a QO is comparable, so I made the comparison. Apparently it's not a good example, because nobody gets what I was trying to say, so forget it.

you're just attacking each other's points, becoming mired in semantics and getting more and more angry about it, which is pointless.

So yeah, I'm done with this topic, for this reason.

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

I do this a lot of the time but I don't think of it as a "quantum ogre" situation. I think DP is trying to explain a method similar to the one I outline in this blog post, but without the formality of explicitly formulating problems and semi-randomly sorting the cards into piles.