ITT: GMs bitch about stupid double standards players have >Doesn't

>player consistently fudges rolls whenever possible and gets booty blasted the second the GM has a good roll

>>49325810
If you do 'quantum ogre' stuff right the players will never know, or even think about it.

>players don't fill out their character sheet properly and need to add in stuff as it comes up
>complains when you have to check the stats on an enemy in the monster manual

>>49325839
Pretend you didn't see them fudging the roll. Note how many times and how hard they did it. Apply the total as a curse/penalty in some appropriately inconvenient situations. They should learn not to push their luck when Lady Luck is an actual in-game entity you shouldn't offend.

>Pisses and moans about how much the players suck
>Still continues to GM every week instead of doing something else despite probably sucking at it
Wait, sorry, that's OP.

>players complain about railroading
>whine if they don't get a straight and unhindered path to their goals

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>>49327839
Sometimes you just have to rant about this sort of shit, y'know?

>>49325810
I had to look up what a quantum ogre was

literally, the entirety of the game is a quantum ogre. The person who is the gm made up the ogre. They also made up the entire game and everything you're doing.

what is this

>>49325810

>Players want an intrigue campaign
>Get mad if any NPC sows even the most basic levels of competence.

>>49325810
>WTF why does the villain get away? I killed him fair and square!
>WTF why is my character dead? Come on, DM, I don't want to have to roll up another character!
I understand why this happens, and it's not terrible, but it's still a double standard.
>>49328018
Holy shit this.
>Villain was able to successfully outmaneuver you once due to sheer luck.
>Once
>Player gets bootyblasted

I can't relate to anything in this thread as a player, what the fuck kind of mouthbreathers are you playing with?

>>49328076
Maybe I'm just bitter, well its probably because I'm just bitter, but it seems to me most of the time when players want to do intrigue, it's because they want an ego boost, for NPCs to be baffled by their cunning and guile. Getting out-smarted puts a damper on it

>>49328133
People don't like to be made to feel dumb. Usually they'll get angry when it happens.

>>49328133
>>49328076
While I do agree with you as a forever GM, I do kinda feel an intrigue game requires a lot more trust from the players.
To run one properly, the GM has to act like his NPCs instead of doing the best possible thing from the GMs omniscient perspective, which can be hard to stick to

>>49328147
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JuK1Yr35Io

Kaz gets it

>>49327839
>>49328103
My players are fine. It was mostly a stab at the retarded fa/tg/uys that act like the quantum ogre is an extreme violation of player agency.

>>49327839
>Complain about some aspects of a thing
>You clearly hate that thing!

Never heard of bitching because you care?

>>49325810

>constantly and consistently have to remind my players to edit shit they do in their character sheet

I mean I get it you're absorbed in the game but Christ it gets annoying to remind them to mark what slots they spent.

>>49328103
I've played with a lot of people who assume that tabletop games will be the vidya standard, that is, the player character always wins, even if they make minor mistakes, and that you have to go out of your way to 'lose'.
>>49328133
>>49328147
Yeah, it's one of those assumptions players make that makes sense in the context of a game but not in the game world itself.
Usually when I set up a villain to win something like that, it's to prop them up as an enemy to be knocked over in the endgame.
>>49328170
Fair enough. It can actually be a really hard effort to make sure not to 'cheat', because it's like you're the computer in video game, who can read everything nigh perfectly.

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>that player that literally handicaps himself at character creation every fucking time by making a (in his mind) "cool concept" instead of a character with ability and motivation to interact with the rest of the world
>said player will then proceed to bitch at how his character has no reason or ability to participate in the party
>while the player without a single social skill and massive penalties to all his social interactions somehow manages to not only fit into the party but also become the party leader and face somehow
>the first player then proceeds by talking about other character concepts who all shared the same fucking critical flaws

I'd be mad if I wasn't so busy being impressed at his incompetence.

>>49328264
>DM premade
>handicapped player get mad when low level NPC does more damage than him a few times
>Get's mad when NPC inevitably leaves group
>Levels up and doesn't buff weak stats

>>49328076
It's not a double standard if they complain about death after you let the villains get away despite dying.

Anon, you are the double standards.

>>49329830
This tbqh
>>49328076
If you want your villain to not die, than make him actually be smart and avoid conflict or leave the moment things look bad. Don't make a fiat because your players were able to succeed earlier than intended.

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>player makes a character with no social skills
>ingame, doesn't talk to npcs or even emote about what hes doing
>ask whats up and why he isn't interacting
>tells me angrily that his character has no reason to interact with anyone so by spending the entire session doing nothing hes roleplaying his character despite clearly being bored
Dude

>>49328133

Yes, I get that impression as well.

>>49328170

It's not just trust. As the GM, you've made the world. The players don't know anything that doesn't ultimately come from you. That means, even when you don't have your NPCs in omniscience mode (and you shouldn't) they still probably know a lot more about what's going on than the players, who might or might not be dim bulbs.

There's a fundamental imbalance in favor of NPCs, because they've always been "adapted" to the setting, whereas the PCs can only do that as well as the players can.

>>49328004
Some people take issue with the idea that whether they take a left or right at Albuquerque they're fighting the level 5 ogre. Part of the GM's job is to hide this sort of thing, but to say there's something fundamentally wrong with that just seems dumb to me.

Personally my take is left or right decides whether the ogre has extra guards or a bad leg or somethign

>>49330010

That dude does not want to play a tabletop game, and because of social contracts feels he must. Let him go, anon, he doesn't want to be here and I'm sure if you call him out on that and tell him that it's okay he'll fuck off without incident and thank you for asking. Trust me: that guy DOES NOT WANT TO BE THERE. I've been that guy.

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>>49328264
Give him this.

>>49329830
>>49329874
You're right, I was just poking fun at the theoretical situation- I should have changed the order.
Every villain my parties have faced that doesn't have a prepared (as in, non-fiat) plan in case things go south has either been spared by the party, killed, or arrested and then executed. I find it bullshit for anyone other than a recurring villain to be spared death by the sword, and if they're worth their salt as a recurring villain they have a plan B (and C and D), so if the party manages to kill him before he retreats, he obviously didn't do his job well enough.
I do prefer to let characters off the hook when I can, more often than the villains. I just take it out of them in a way that doesn't involve rolling a new character.

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>>49328264
God I've got a fucker who does EXACTLY this in my gaming group
>Has a new character idea every time he sees something he considers 'cool' on the internet
>Literally every single one of his characters is built around some concept or gimmick he's stolen from somewhere
>Comes up with character ideas and then pesters members of the group to run a game he could play them in, instead of waiting for someone to start up a game and then making a character *for* it
>Bitches and moans if he's told his character is not appropriate for the game
>If allowed to play that character he is severely limited in what he can do and why he'd do anything because the dumb cunt thought up all of his character's motivations and long term plans before the game even began
>Attention will then get caught by some new thing after a few sessions, interest in old character will plummet, will start talking about new character idea constantly and begging to be allowed to drop his character
I want him out of the group so fucking much. He's unbearable. We tell him why he's annoying and what his problems are but he still doesn't clean his act up. But, at the same time, his offences still aren't quite bad enough to kick him out.

>>49330089

You're kind of missing the point.

If, no matter which way the players go, they're definitely encountering that ogre, then they aren't playing a role-playing game at all. They're playing some fundamentally different, other sort of game that doesn't really have a proper designation (except for the somewhat pejorative term "storygame"—but this term has been assigned by the anti-quantum-ogre crowd).

A role-playing game is, at its heart, an exercise in exploration. You inhabit the role of a character exploring a setting created by the DM/GM/ref. This is a meaningless impossibility if the setting hasn't mostly been pre-defined before the player characters ever enter into the proceedings.

If the GM moves encounters around behind the scenes, or makes shit up on the fly, then the GM hasn't created a setting, only the illusion of one—hence, "illusionism". It's looked down about by old-school role-players because there's little meaningful difference between illusionism, a railroad (or "frustrated novelist") plot, and the hostile and arbitrary whims of a Viking Hat DM. All of these bad practices are fatal errors because they undercut the fundamental contract at the heart of a role-playing game, namely that the GM is to play the world impartially, neither favoring the players nor dicking them around.

To summarize, it's not "quantum ogres = bad", it's "quantum ogres = not RPGing"

>>49331243
How would you know that the path you took wasn't always the ogre path?
Beside, you can have a little bit of illusion and not be railroading.
I get what you're saying, the idea that if it's not fully a living breathing world where every action should have a specific reaction, and not just DM whims, but I wouldn't say that's the end all be all of RP Games. It's not even possible to ignore, if your PC always just happen to miss combat, they won't have fun if that's what they enjoy, so sometimes you have to throw them a fight even though you didn't have that fight preplanned.

>>49330370
>I should have changed the order.
That actually would change the entire situation.

>>49325810
Actually this is entirely internally consistent.

>if you do quantum ogres I don't have agency
>if I'm not playing the game I don't have agency

See how that works?

>>49331311
But that's fundamentally different than the idea that no matter which path they choose they are encountering the fight.

Adding a bit of combat to an otherwise nonviolent setting may be fun/useful if such is desired as it adds a bit of variety, but again that's different to the original idea.

It's not that you're throwing in a fight you didn't preplan, you've planned out the fight and no matter what the players choose to do they're going to do that fight, that's shitty railroading and should not be lauded or otherwise praised in any way.

Preplan some encounters by all means, think about what the party will likely encounter, but there should never be a case where no matter how the players decide to act, they're going to fight that fucking ogre.

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>>49331243
>A role-playing game is, at its heart, an exercise in exploration. You inhabit the role of a character exploring a setting created by the DM/GM/ref. This is a meaningless impossibility if the setting hasn't mostly been pre-defined before the player characters ever enter into the proceedings.
>mostly
There's the rub.
Not that anon, but you have a point. However, there is a problem.
A GM can not be reasonably expected to draft and create and run an entire living breathing world created for the players down to the most minute details.
There has to be shortcuts.
Quantum ogres is one such possible shortcut.
If a GM runs a game that it exists entirely in the quantum state where all player decisions are meaningless, then that is not an RPG.
If the GM runs a game where every possible place or location or item the PCs could possibly encounter has been meticulously drafted and drawn out to the finest level of detail, that is not an RPG either. That is some Herculean effort at simulation.
The answer, of course, lies somewhere in between and the line is subjective.

The subject is mentioned briefly in this PDF. I think rather well.

>>49325810
> Players minmaxing endlessly and being munchkins with every fucking option no matter how much some less-optimized option fits the bullshit background they present.

Bitch endlessly when the npc's dare deviate from the plain vanilla they've optimized themselves against.

>Players have bad experience with other members of the group GMing
>Ask me to GM since I'm always the best at it
>Set up game and schedule everything around my work schedule since everyone else is underemployed and should be way more flexible.
>Half the group can't make it every session or has a last minute emergency that makes them have to cancel and don't tell me until it is already game time
>This happens for months on end until I tell them if they want to just play spontaneously and can't stick to a schedule they'll have to find a different GM
>Repeat in 3 months
Can't Wake Up.png

>>49330254
This is amazing, and it's going into my advice folder right alongside Tracks in the Sand and GM_Advice.

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>>49325810
>Makes a character
>Bullies random mage apprentices like he's a highschool jock stereotype
>Brags and laughs about how much of an asshole his PC is
>Complains after the session that he doesn't feel like a hero

>Everyone makes regular characters
>One player min-mixes his character for combat to the point where he's way above the ability expected of him in combat but lacking in every other area
>Complains combat is too easy
>Complains his character can't influence anything outside of combat
You were the one who rolled up an attack dog with no charima or practical skills.

>>49331963

I would never want to play with the douche-canoe that wrote that pdf. He clearly has a hard-on for his railroad and doesn't get sandboxes at all.

The epiphany moment comes from realizing that if you don't understand sandboxes, you don't understand D&D at all.

You know how when people complain here on /tg/, some witless putz always puts up that I.T. Crowd meme that says, "have you tried not playing D&D"?

It's actually not far off the mark, but it ought to read, "Have you tried not using an RPG like D&D for your narrative game?"

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>>49331243
>If, no matter which way the players go, they're definitely encountering that ogre, then they aren't playing a role-playing game at all

One, choice still matters unless you're using the quantum ogre incredibly poorly. If the players are specifically trying to avoid the ogre or seek it out, then suddenly the choice to go left or right matters and you don't use the quantum ogre. If the players are just fucking off and chosing paths at random or choosing which path to take with a different purpose in mind, the quantum ogre can be used.

Additionally, you're still playing a roleplaying game if you're not 'exploring the setting.' You have an absurd definition of roleplaying game. A roleplaying game is a game in which you play a specific role, and work with the GM to create an interesting narrative, overcome challenges, and interact with various creatures and characters. A completely fleshed-out setting is not required to qualify as an RPG.

> there's little meaningful difference between illusionism, a railroad (or "frustrated novelist") plot, and the hostile and arbitrary whims of a Viking Hat DM

Quantum encounters are a tool in the box of a good GM, not the entirety of a GM-ing style, and have absolutely nothing to do with railroading. I assume by 'Viking hat GM' you mean lol-randum GMing - which is yet a third thing that is distinct from the others. If you honestly think these are all indistinguishable from each other, you're retarded.

>they undercut the fundamental contract at the heart of a role-playing game, namely that the GM is to play the world impartially, neither favoring the players nor dicking them around.
Quantum encounters do no such thing. Nor is this a fundamental contract a thing. The GM is expected to keep things fair and fun.

>To summarize, it's not "quantum ogres = bad", it's "quantum ogres = not RPGing"
To summarize your position, it's not 'quantum ogres = not RPGing,' it's 'Stop liking what I don't like."

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>>49333645

>not understanding sandboxes means not understanding D&D

I think you can have something that is more focused that isn't sandboxing or railroading and it can be good

>>49327839

I have a lot of things I enjoy doing, it doesn't mean I can't get annoyed at certain aspects of it.

Just because you like something doesn't mean you need to act like it's completely flawless, you know.

>>49333645
That .pdf was compiled by grabbing a whole bunch of posts off of /tg/ from a thread about railroading vs sandboxes.

If you honestly think offering the players a plot hook for a pre-planned plot is railroading, get the fuck out. You're the worst sort of entitled cunt of a player. The point of railroading is that it allows no deviation. If your plot has the flexibility to accommodate changes and can handle unexpected player moves, it's not a railroad. If your plot can be abandoned and left behind by the players if they so choose, it's not a railroad.

D&D isn't married to the sandbox style of game. Not even OD&D had that, given the wealth of modules and adventures published.

>>49333722
This. Most problems in life should first be approached with the question, "does it matter?"

And whether it matters has a lot to with whether quantum ogres are okay.

It's not all that important what physical direction the players are heading in, but what narrative direction they're heading in.

>>49333645
>I can't read a pdf: The post.

>>49327750
This is actually a good idea for a planescape campgain.

>>49331176
I shit you not, I once received "He's got chains on his arms!" as a character concept
Like.
Fucking what?

I've never encountered the term 'quantum ogre' before this thread but I get it now, completely. My problem with it is, with the profoundly huge amount of tools and options at any GMs fingertips, what kind of shitcunt would be so attached to a single encounter idea that they can't roll with the punches? You spent three hours statting out these monsters? D&D Monster Advancer can do it in seconds. Or you can use the Advancer and tweak manually after the fact and STILL have spent only minutes.

Let go of your idea if the players take a different route. Or just reframe the encounter to whatever context the players chose to enact. If the players knew that they were going to encounter the exact same ogre, then you fucked up. Git gud, son! For real. Attachment to "muh story" or even to "muh sandbox" and "muh prep!" is no excuse for such amateur-hour bullshit.

>>49327750
>>49334412
I'm tempted to use this concept anyway in my homebrew setting. Lady Luck enforcing a rigorously logical curse to those who attempt to defy her chaos really tickles me in a poetic justice sort of way. Thankfully my players have almost the same sense of sportsmanship that I do so they only game the system by RAW, and the idea they would feel the need to cheat is just laughable. So I'll keep this in reserve for whenever new players come around. It also helps that I'm an NG "Rule of Cool" GM with chaotic tendencies with a constant reinforcement that I won't kill anyone unfairly or through unannounced save-or-dies, but I won't be holding anyone's hand or pussyfooting around stupid decisions along the way.

So all hail Lady Luck in her unyielding indifference and capriciousness.

>>49334857
Literally zero harm done. Setting up or randoming an encounter for every choice they could make doesn't help create a better story. GM should feel free to, but only feel obligated if the PCs are making an effort to avoid the quantum ogre.

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>>49334857
>. My problem with it is, with the profoundly huge amount of tools and options at any GMs fingertips, what kind of shitcunt would be so attached to a single encounter idea that they can't roll with the punches?

The idea that A GM MUST plan a billion encounters is player entitlement. A proper quantum encounter isn't much other than a basic statblock and a concept. To use the aforementioned ogre - you have a floating encounter with your ogre planned, but it hasn't taken full form yet. You offer the players the option of taking the north or south road. the North road leads to the dwarven mountains. The south road leads to the trackless wastes.

If they take the north road, they'll hit mountainous terrain so you stick your ogre in a cave. Are they going to leave from the road and seek shelter? He stays in the cave. If they just camp on the side of the road the ogre goes hunting and finds them. Decide whether the ogre needs help or is just a combat encounter based on their reactions.

If they go south, that's rocky desert. Why's the ogre there? Must be raiding caravans. They stumble upon a smashed caravan with some dying guards, and footsteps leading away. Ogre has dragged them off to his rocky cave. Will they save the captured people who will no doubt be eaten?

Players decide FUCK ROADS and lash a raft together and head down the river. They find a Ogre trapper who ambushes bears for furs. Do they trade or fight?

The idea behind quantum encounters is not to say 'this ogre is wherever you go next' but 'AN ogre is wherever you go next, and that location shapes why the ogre is there and how you will interact with him. They're encounter seeds, not fully built encounters that follow your party around.

>>49335146
>The idea that A GM MUST plan a billion encounters is player entitlement
This.

Players who have no idea what kind of work it would be to fill literally every hex in the entire game world with perfectly-balanced fun encounters and NPCs with original professional-quality writing... yet these same players probably can't be assed to write more than a single half-assed paragraph of backstory of justifiacation their PC whose build was mindlessly ripped off the internet for its high damage stats.

Like what, do you want me to literally do nothing but roll random encounters and randomized dungeons for you to jerk off to? Oh right, then you'd try to shit on me for "poor writing".

>>49336337
>justifiacation

I should learn to not post while angry.

I have one, GMd for this girl until recently and she's a fellow player in another campaign
Party steamrolling an encouner:
>LOL OP WE SO STRONG (several memes)

Party getting their shit kicked in:
>WOW ARE YOU REALLY GONNA WIPE US ALL, NICE DIFFICULTY THERE
GM tones down the difficulty and party goes back to kicking ass
>LELEL WE WINNING LELEL

Also pissed me the fuck out how she was ready to complain out of character when I rolled a skillcheck on her PC and wasn't even done describing what the character was doing to her's

>>49333645
D&D, at it's heart is not a sandbox or a railroad.

It is a tactical wargame distilled down to controling individual units (PCs) versus a more general crowd of foes (the GM, his monsters, and the adventure.)

It is, fundamentally, about dungeon crashing and murderhoboing.

If we choose to then do other, debateably more interesting things between dungeon-crash, murderhoboing, then we build on that from our group's styles.

If your players couldn't find a plot hook with both hands and someone else's brain, then you kinda have to railroad a little.

If your players constantly want to explore weird tangents to your plans, then for them to have anything to do that session, they kinda have to use the island theory in that pdf. Or "quantum ogres," if I'm understanding that term in the OP.

As a GM, you kinda only have a limited time to both build stuff to run, and actually run it. Around an actual table, sometimes it can be easy to rough out a quick encounter map. For a session on a digital table, you sometimes need to put more effort into that individual map.

>>49325810
I honestly wouldn't call that an outright double standard. One is outright laziness on the part of the GM the latter is a person actually wanting to participate. You deciding to no use a pre-planned encounter due to player choices doesn't inherently keep anyone from having fun and playing the game while the player is pretty much sitting around with his thumb up his ass while he waits for you to throw his character into the story.

I mean they are both somewhat bad but they cannot be considered a double standard. Like
>Players bitch about GM never including subterfuge or diplomacy in games
>Players just butcher, torture, or intimidate anyone who gets in their way anyway

>>49325810
>players want to be payed gold because they believe they dont have enough gold for things
>dicks around in the town, gets arrested, follows random red herrings of their own invention, and doesnt deal with the castle of the undead

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>>49325810
>have 2 thick-as-thieves chucklefuck players who just want to fuck everyone over in the most inefficient and fun (relatively speaking) way possible
>have 2 contemplative armchair philosophers who want to have emotional connections to every NPC they pass and pry into every detail of the setting like there's some hidden knowledge I'll give them
>chucklefucks want action, heroics, and humor
>philosophers want roleplay, depth, and grimdarkness
>ALL I WANT TO DO IS BALANCE THIS IN A NICE ORIGINAL SETTING BUT NOBODY WILL BUDGE AN INCH

>>49325810
>>49328004
Offering quantumogreable choices is pretty dumb desu. The choice really means nothing, it's a waste of time to offer it.

Offer them a choice to trek through Ogre Mountains or Lizard Swamp, /that/ is a valid and interesting choice, that's going to have different progression due to terrain even if Ogres and Lizards are roughly equivalent in statblocks.

>>49337860
Sounds to me like you have two different games.

(not that that's an acceptable or optimal solution at all)

>>49337860
>>49337940
>grim&gritty duo of investigators are following a trail of insane bonny and clyde style murderhobos

>>49337967
Jesus christ, why didn't I think of that?

>>49337940
>>49337967

I actually had a DM that did this with my game and another one in a Starwars setting.
The other party was a pair of space pirates that were pillaging Imperial space.
We were two intrepid Imperial Agents who made two different versions of James Bond unawares of eachother, I played a Pierce Brosnan style Bond, he played a Daniel Craig who specializes in shooting off heads Bond.

>>49338186
Because it's /fucking hell hard/ to pull of?

>>49338186
Make the FUN players take mandatory calling cards for their characters, but let them hide or disguise them on each scene.

Investigators have to figure out which recent murders are their quarry and where they are going next.

>>49338222
Dramaguys having to OOC observe the others do the murder is going to add some dramatic tension. Although gotta make sure no metagaming goes on; do the clue parts in private or by notes.

>>49338243
>murderers are stalking the next target
>making rolls to sneak and follow
>on the other side of the table, investigators are rushing to find the target too
>the investigators secure their target
>the murderer stabs the victim, revealing that the cops got something wrong and picked up the wrong target
Classic move.

>GM constantly fudges dice rolls to make the game 'fun.'
>Flips out at a player for cheating when he catches them lying about an attack roll.

Literally no difference.

>>49325810
Looking
Up
Spells

>GM rolls die and announces result
>player is outraged because of the high number and yanks down GM screen
>the die is not even the high number: it's actually a nat20 or setting equivalent
>if the GM had announced the crit, the PC would be dead

I hate it when players don't understand that I just want to make the game fun for them...

>>49335146
I like this way of doing things. And I agree with your post.

Lately there's a retard coming on /tg/, who is complaining about fudging rolls and GMs who "cheat" and "play the game wrong" because they don't "follow the rules". I am pretty sure he also posted in this very thread.

You shouldn't waste your time with him: arguing with him is not worth it, because he is absolutely dead set in "the game should be random in every aspect and the rules should always be respected by players And GM alike. With no houserules and no modifications"

When someone is as obstinate and unadaptable as he is, you already know that arguing is not going to go anywhere, no matter how good your points are, he will repeat the same things over and over again and he will use every logical fallacy he can to try and undermine your points.

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>>49335146
I entirely respect and understand why GM's run this playstyle. GMing is a lot of hard work and any shortcuts to make that process more simple make a lot of sense.

I just don't think it is neccesary to do so. I mean in your example is it that much more difficult to make it so the Ogre is to the North, Trolls are to the south and lzardmen trappers live in the rivers ? And if it isn't much more difficult why bother with the quantum ogres at all don't you just hold yourself and your group back?

>>49338863
Quantum ogre
>prepare 1 statblock, modify it a bit depending on what the encounter is for cave ogre, trapper ogre and sea ogre

Ogres, trolls and lizardmen
>prepare 3 statblocks with wholly different combat tactics

You only have to prep character motivations for the first one, and the tactics can be similar. Have you ever thought of how lizardmen and single ogre might fight differently? Have you thought of the potential loot that might be provided in that environment and picked it out for lizardmen vs ogres?

Have you considered the party balance and attempted to balance one singular enemy to make everyone be able to do something, and considered how 5 enemies would be able to have to fight the party and give them a challenging if winnable fight?

And then, for the second, you throw away the two other statblocks, so that work's gone as soon as the party levels up. You're literally doing 3 times as much work compared to only writing up one statblock (slightly modified).

>>49335146
This is the best advice in the thread by far.

What the argument REALLY boils down to is this: interesting monsters interact with their environment! A monster who is "just there" is bad by comparison, whether it's a quantum monster or not.

>>49338993
Again you are making it sound like this is a lot of work but in reality I don't think it is at all.

The statblocks are all printed in the Monster Manual you don't need to invent them yourself. There's also CR guidelines in the books.

So I will imagine I'm playing 4e with a party of four level 4 players.

CR appropriate Encounters are:

> 5 Lizardfolk. 1 giant lizard
>1 Troll
>2 Ogres

As for tactics it's fairly simple to work them out and then just play that out.

The Lizardmen use hit and run tactics and flee at half strength.
The Ogres fight to the death defending their young in their cave but don't pursue past it.
The troll is hungry so will try to drag individual pc's away to eat.

That took me 5 minutes ? Maybe I'm fortunate in I've been gming long enough to fairly easily be able to run any number of encounters on the fly but I really don't understand the great difficulty here that means you have to copy and paste the same encounter with different scenery?

>>49339115
> 4e

Woops, I meant 5E for those encounters.

>>49339115
>using the statblocks
My players regularly blow through CR equivalent monsters unless I carefully add boosted powers to the monsters. Even then, simply cutting and pasting monsters out of the statblocks leads to pretty piss poor fights in ten by ten feet squares or an open battlefield.

I would have had to have made three sets of terrain anyway but that plays a part in the difficulty, too. And the strategies that a lizardfolk, a troll and an ogre are going to be vastly different.

If you're happy with monster manual statblocks and no customisation so you get to be able to fight monsters with no brains or forethought, and think it'll be a better game, then sorry, I'll make my game better with crafted quantum ogres.

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>>49339115
Sounds like your wasting time for something your players wont notice and probably wouldn't care about. Hell you could just make a handful of really unique encounters and just simply had your players randomly encounter them when appropriate. Cause they will probably remember that Ogre more if you put more thought into it then just randomly grabbing some random stat blocks because you don't want your players thinking it was a quantum ogre. Cause im pretty sure most players just forget about the filler encounters unless someone died. So save yourself some time and prepare better encounters then random trash the players need to clear cause then your just wasting their time.

>>49338770
>a retard
>implying there isn't more than one person that doesn't like it when the GM completely removes their agency or consequences of their actions

>>49339289
>players encounter an ogre
>YOU'RE REMOVING OUR AGENCY!

o-okay

>>49325810
Every time I see this image, it takes me a moment to realize she doesn't have a USB flash drive in her mouth.

Sign of the times, man.

>>49339196
I was going to add the point in my original post that you can obviously then adjust the encounters further towards your group but I thought it went without saying alas I was mistaken. This still doesn't take a long time. Maybe 5-10 minutes per encounter tops.

Each of the examples came with terrain and how the monsters use it so I'm not sure where the blank battlefield came from.

I'm happy with games that have a unique variety of encounters for my players to choose to tackle that form the actual world they are exploring. They have choice and agency as a result. If they hear rumours of trolls they can do some research and bring their acid vials, or water breathing potions to fight the lizardmen at their own game . I mean what do you do in your games if your players try to gather information about the areas in the world before they venture off? Do all the npc's say that ogres exist in every corner of the land?

I understand your style of gming. When I started gming I would do the same thing and design a certain amount of 'precious encounters' then funnell my players through them one way or another because that's how I thought the game was meant to be run and I was prpbably also scared the game would fall apart if my 'precious encounters' were not followed. But god was it boring. I loosened up and adjusted to a more sandbox style of play and I now play to find out what will happen which is a lot more fun.

Granted pehaps it was from designing lots of set piece encounters and running them that I am now able to essentially do that on the fly but honestly a video game can create a far more interesting tactical combats than a tabletop RPG can,'precious encounters' no matter how well designed are not really the games strength.

The unique strength of RPG's is the vast amount of choice and possibilities and taking that away so the tactical combats you've ( by the sounds of it spent hours designing?)play out perfectly seems to be shooting yourself in the foot.

>>49338770
>You shouldn't waste your time with him: arguing with him is not worth it, because he is absolutely dead set in "the game should be random in every aspect and the rules should always be respected by players And GM alike. With no houserules and no modifications
He should just play VTNL than, the only game retarded enough for such a gibbering idiot.

>>49339297
>go down the road to the eastern kingdoms
YOU ENCOUNTER AN ARAB OGRE
>take a boat-trip to the southern kingdoms
YOU'RE ATTACKED BY A SEA OGRE
>take the train to the western states
YOU'RE ATTACKED BY A FREEDOM OGRE
>fuck that shit, go hide in the closet
>BAM! A CLOSET OGRE UP IN YOUR SHIT!
>that's it, I'm going to bed
YOU'RE SUDDENLY WOKEN UP BY THE OGRE OF CHRISTMAS PAST, HE PROMPTLY ATTACKS YOU

>>49339349
YOU ARE IN OGRE KINGDOM, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?
love is ogre

>>49337860
>NICE ORIGINAL SETTING
To be honest as cool as your setting might be, your players aren't going to care/be able to care enough. You shouldn't expect too much.

>>49339349
That sounds pretty fun. I roll up an ogre PC

>>49339330
Bet your own of those DMs whose campaign is best described as wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle.

If your players wanted to indulge in these choices on which trash to kill. Hope they don't discover Skyrim or The Witcher since those atleast have better graphics.

>>49339330
> Do all the npc's say that ogres exist in every corner of the land?
It's called quantum because once observed in anyway, it exists. If the players ask which way the ogre is and they go the opposite way, than they won't find the ogre because they collapsed the wave function. Basic science.

>If they hear rumours of trolls they can do some research and bring their acid vials, or water breathing potions to fight the lizardmen at their own game
This isn't taken away either though.

>>49339442
>>49339485
I also think that these anons are right. If the DM has to work less and have more fun, I'm all for it.

>>49337865
Nah man. Offer to let the players travel down Ogre Road or through Dragons Pass. And if they choose dragons pass, let them fight the dragon and party wipe.

Dumb fucks want to fight a dragon, that's on them.

Or they can try to sneak past it or whatever and get the experience they would have got from the ogre but no loot or reputation. In fact people might be skeptical because the Ogre is blocking all traffic from their two and the pass has a dragon.

>>49339442
You realise you create depth by presenting a variety of meaningful choices to the players right?

If every choice leads to the same encounter, even if it is a super awesome special magical encounter, your game doesn't have any depth as it's just a railroad which ironically is what video games do better.

>>49339371
No, no, because if every way the party turns leads to an encounter that their decisions didn't influence, it removes player agency! I wanted to fight lizardmen! Fuck the GM that says there aren't lizardmen in the next encounter. GIVE ME LIZARDS YOU SHIT.

>>49339507
That is why they are called quantum ogres. That means that until the players inform themselves and know there is an ogre in the north, that ogre could be anywhere. If they know there is an ogre in the north and they elect going south and inform themselves, in the south will be a tribe of Hobgoblins instead.

This is what quantum ogre means. Unless the players know about the whereabouts of the monster, it could be anywhere.

>>49339330
>>49338863
>>49338993
I personally had never heard of the term “quantum ogre” before this thread.
This approach makes more sense when it’s used with something more involved than a single ogre encounter.
If you worked to flesh out a dungeon for your players to discover and explore and they turn left instead of right, abandoning your planned adventure in favor of strolling through farmland is dumb.
You just have them discover the dungeon on the left road instead.


>>49339349
Now you’re just making this ogre-complicated.

>>49339535
/thread ogre

>>49339507
Unless you're thinking of every possible path they could take, your going to be rolling random encounters when they go somewhere you didn't expect.
What's wrong with having a random encounter already set aside at that point that you can quickly customize for where they're going and put more thought into it?

>>49339485

So your players hear Ogres are to the north. They go south. You've prepped nothing except the Ogre encounter which you now can't use. What do you do exactly?

It seems a lot less work to just prep what is in each area in advance and layer in clues as you go.

And the players wouldn't be able to prepare for a troll fight that doesn't exist because only ogres exist. They can choose to go fight ogres or well do nothing ?

>>49338770
>Lately there's a retard coming on /tg/, who is complaining about fudging rolls and GMs who "cheat" and "play the game wrong" because they don't "follow the rules". I am pretty sure he also posted in this very thread.
I believe I know the fellow.
Last time I saw him pop up, he reduced his argument to insisting that modifying an encounter after the session started (such as secretly changing an enemies stats to adjust the difficulty) was creating an inconsistent experience for the players. He never returned after being asked to explain how or why.

>>49339541
There's nothing wrong with using random encounters or a prepared encounter. Just not a prepared encounter that will magically appear in every area the players turn to.

>>49339542
You could have another different encounter already prepared, they're not going to try to ask the locals every five feet what monsters are around.
>t seems a lot less work to just prep what is in each area in advance and layer in clues as you go.
That sounds like a lot of work. Because they can go a whole lot of places. There's 8 directions for every amount they move. So if the move a mile SE, than another mile E, not something unreasonable, you have an encounter for that specific area? And every area adjacent, and every area they could reasonably reach in a session's time? That could be a whole lot of area, especially when faster safer modes of travel are around.

>>49339542
Um... obviously a DM has prepared more than one encounter. A good DM will have several more encounters than they expect the PCs to possibly have time to get into in a given session, just in case, and can choose which encounter is most appropriate.

Additionally, the quantum monster thing is nothing new. It's been in every D&D DMG since at least the 2nd printing of 2e, and probably before then.

>>49339507
>If every choice leads to the same encounter

How do the players know? When I play a game, I don't know whether or not the three encounters that happened in a session were because they were what the GM planned to do from the very start, or whether they flowed naturally from our decisions - and, fundamentally, does it matter? They were fun. They made sense. Whether the attacking bandits (that we encountered because we chased down a convoy quickly) would have had the same stats as the hypothetical encounter we might've encountered had we decided to do something else doesn't matter.

Why worry about all the myriad possibilities inherent in all the encounters that could be but aren't in a game? After making a choice in a game, do you then go back and make a different choice to see if the GM is removing your agency? Unless you're actually testing it, it seems to come down to whether or not you wanna feel aggrieved.

>>49339554
>Just not a prepared encounter that will magically appear in every area the players turn to.
Why? If the players don't know, and the end result is more fun for them, why would it matter what you originally intended? Hardmode no >muh agency

>>49339542
>You haven't prepared anything
>assuming
I usuallt prepare 3-4 possible encounters and if the players do something that really throws me off I call a 10 minute break... or get them in a situation where they have to RP among themselves for a bit.

>It seems less work
Last time I checked, 3-4 is less than 8

>They can choose
Yes, they can. They just have to gather information and I give information to them accordingly. That's what a GM has to do.

>>49339554
Why?

>>49339577
This.

Can you articulate exactly why it matters?
Players still have choice and agency, they just have the illusion of more.

>>49339330
Honestly, I'm exaggerating the problem somewhat. I just hate having to do extra work - if the players decide the previous session they'll check the routes beforehand and choose to head through the lizardman forests instead of the ogre mountains that's fine, as long as I have time to prep the encounter beforehand.

I just dislike having to "wing it" and prep three encounters before the game for North South and East only to have the players decide to go Down. THAT is when they get jumped by this teleporting ogre mage who is after their bag of goodies, when I don't have something prepared.

>>49339542
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYmm5YQSv2I

Like WWE, a RPG is more about smoke and mirrors (illusions) than pre-planned everything.

Most GMs do not have the time to prepare for every single thing the PCs could do (most have a job, a family and other life-related things they have to do, detracting time from their hobby) and they can only plan so far. This is why they go with a few pre-planned encounters and give the players the illusion of choosing what they want to do.

Some do it better than others.

>>49339515
YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE STEALING THE RING OF OGRE ALLURE, YOU LITTLE SHIT

>>49339535

I can understand a quantum dungeon more than forcing the players towards a single encounter, dungeons do take work, but I still don't think its neccesary.

Personally I insert multiple potential dungeons into my world and sketch an outline of what the place is, its purpose, its inhabitants etc. If the players decide to enter the dungeon I will use that sketch for the remainder of the session then design the rest in detail for the next one. Or I can simply end the session at the dungeon entrance as long as enough time has passed in session.

For example in my next game my players are more than likely going to enter a sewer dungeon, a former temple to a sea cult in the city, now occupied by rebels and their wererat allies. My sketch was simply Giant Octopus Guardian , room with arrow traps, wererat guardroom, rebels , treasure. I've now expanded it with a full map and keyed locations as I know my players want to go there.

If the players change their mind next session, fair enough they might go back another session so it isn't 'wasted'. If they do just ignore it entirely and never enter, well I lost an hour or so of design time I don't see the massive deal.

>>49339639
FUCK YOU STEVE!
GIVE ME BACK MY AGENCY!

And don't just tell me to take off the ring, you prick, you removed my agency by making it have some great other abilities that you KNOW we wouldn't sacrifice! Why, I bet you're fucking planning these encounters around having the abilities granted by this ring - why can't you just let us walk over every encounter now we're a higher level, huh? Why do you keep putting challenges in our way, huh?

>>49339349
Fuck you faggot we're playing Ogres the Ogrening Ogre edition

>>49339605
I suppose I'm pretty good at winging it by now which helps.

I started out by designing a lot of railroady games with set piece encounters. I ran a lot of modules as well which helped me learn the basics.

In my third year of Uni I began running a sandbox game in a homebrew world that was meant to merge everything I'd learned , sadly I had a bad break up and hit a wall of depression and told the players I couldn't do it. Players begged me to return so I did and for around 5-6 months I ran weekly 6 hour sessions with no prep what so ever. Like I'd just rock up with my books and say go.

It was a lot of fun, I used a lot of random encounter generators and made a lot of shit up on the fly. I distinctly remember deciding one session that wasn't going anywhere with the players in an Inn should be the mist so I threw eldritch horrors at them from the walls and basement and had a mist fall, finished it off with the mage responsible storming the inn and the party fought her off and saved the town, in another the party journeyed east and I used my history knowledge to bullshit a bunch about the custom of the kings and their history which the players used when encountering them. So I never get scared about not having prep although I do also like to have a lot of prep for my games now.

>>49338723
Yes I agree, alternatively when your GM is fed up with your hyper tank and gets three confirmed crits on you some how. There's a plethora of shitty players, but there's a number of shitty GMs too. You just see more players since a game is four players to one game master, on average.

>>49339349
You have no idea how much I want this

>>49338363
This is mostly true. I think in a world where both sides of the table have equal responsibility in an encounter, both should roll everything with an immediate effect out in the open, or be able to fudge sparingly.

However, there isn't an equal responsibility in most games. It's the player's job to overcome/solve the encounter, while it's the GMs job to provide an appropriate challenge. The players will only fudge rolls in order to ensure a chance of victory, while the GM will fudge rolls to ensure there is a chance of victory or defeat. Generally speaking, the GM will have a much better understanding of those chances.

Not to mention, the GM has a much better meta-view of the game. The player may fudge a crit on a boss, one shotting him and providing an underwhelming end to the battle because he didn't know the boss's HP and only has the goal of succeeding, while the GM may fudge a crit on a player to knock him down to a vulnerable level of HP to provide tension or fudge his own saving throw because he knows how many enemy reinforcements are on the way.

>>49339245
This. Exactly this.

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>players ignore plothooks, demand less railroading
>get annoyed when things become understandably simpler because i have to make up shit as I go along

You can't have it both ways

>>49339662
BECAUSE LAST WEEK YOU WHINED ABOUT HOW ALL THE ENEMIES WERE PISS EASY AND YOU COULDN'T USE YOUR POWERFUL ABILITIES BECAUSE IT WAS A WASTE OF TIME ON THINGS SMALLER THAN YOU, YOU FAGGOT, THEN YOU STOLE THE OGRE ATTRACTION RING BECAUSE YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO FIGHT OGRES, YOU ASSHOLE!

>>49338993
Dude, this is assumed to be DnD.

Everyone fights so fucking samey that it hurts once you realize how interesting and varied martial arts are in real life by comparison.

The ogre, troll, and lizardmen will all power attack for full against whatever is in reach, maybe they flee when low on HP if you use the morale check rules.

They are all large sized humanoids with weapons and probably a bite.

If things are spiced up, the troll has HP regen, the lizard has weirdness related to fire or frost damage, the ogre has layers.

>>49339786
> sitting in inn minding my own business.
> lul eldritch horrors from the walls!
WHERE'S MUH' AGENCY?! I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS!

>>49339542
There is ogres to the north. The PCs decide that ogres are not cool, and go south.

You can:
* Look upon your worldmap, and decide that in the south there is elves/amazon/whatever, and plan accordingly.
* Decide that there is ogre in the south too, because all is ogre.

Is everything ogre anon? What's the best solution? It's obvious.

>>49339639
> steals ring, turns out to be cursed ring of ogre allure
> every encounter is now some crazy ogre re-skin
> Ogres riding ogres into battle
> Flying sorcerer ogres using dragon's breath
> Inter-dimensional ogre/mind-flayer hybrids
> ogre beholders
> my sides

>>49340058
And one should never ogre-look the obvious.

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>>49339349
Having this all happen in quick succession makes it awesome.

Players just hounded by 12 foot tall fucking ogres.

Think you are safe, finally come out of hiding spot, carefully poke head around each corner to check for ogres.

Make it to a tavern.

Ask barkeep for the stiffest drink he has.

Barkeeps asks what's got you feeling like shit.

Ogres, you reply.

Barkeep takes off disguise.

Is Ogres, all of the Ogres you have been running from riding in the barkeep disguise like a clown car.

It is indeed all Ogre now.

>>49339646
Or, instead of wasting a hour for no reason, you could re-purpose your work elsewhere (modify it to be appropriate). Zero harm done, time saved, and you can put even more thought into it now.

>>49340030
Err, Yes it was bad gming by my own standards now, although good gming by the standards of this board it seems. I haven't always been perfect sadly. I used the point to illustrate why I don't get intimidated if I don't have prep for a session but you knew that.

>>49340085
Yes I'm sure it makes sense for the players to encounter a city based sewer dungeon in the middle of the mountains.

Yes I could 'repurpose' it. But that would take work as well as I'd have to remove and replace all the details that don't make sense anymore by which time I may as well have just designed something fresh that does make sense.

>>49340080
This thread is literally Shrekt.

>>49331549
How the fuck would you know it was a quantum Ogre unless you read the adventure ahead of time and were metagaming?

How can you insist on absolute player agency by ruling out the possibility of any quantum ogre, but also insist on not necessarily having to face the consequences of the exercise of your agency?

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>>49325810
>be DM
>be all about player agency because I know "plots" have nothing to do in RPGs
>design sandbox world with lots of variety and fun content to go find
>players have an amazing time
>shitty railroading DMs get all the idiots and bad players and get salty
>one of them makes this thread
>while we keep on stylin'

>>49339349
I am so using "The Ogre of Christmas Past" in my next campaign.

>>49340003
Just have someone steal from them.

Stealing from players is the best form of not-railroading that still gets them to at least get going in a direction.

Just suddenly tell them that some item of theirs is missing next time they go to use it, then suggest going to the tavern and asking about it.

Tavern keeper doesn't know who has the thing, but figures it has to be some part of the criminal underworld.

Cue players murdering half the underworld looking for their stuff, only sparing the odd soul for the sake of torture and public execution. You can give them leads towards criminal hangouts and such so they have more than one place to choose from at a time.

Their actual thing? Sold to a merchant who left town before they got the to tavern to ask for it.

>>49339542
You can do other encounters. Things that are not combat.

You find a woman tied to a tree.

You find a cart with a broken wheel surrounded by a traveling merchant and his caravan guard

You find gnomes

That's just off the top of my head.

>>49340029
And that's why your encounters are shit.

>Singular big strong guy who can potentially oneshot people physically and has a large range, meaning if he gets them in a chokepoint it'll be a nasty thing

>trolls working in pairs belching acid on casters to stop them from doing shit while using tag team tactics to regenerate

>lizardmen sneaking in the swamps, diving in and out of the water throwing spears with shot on the run or just moving back into the water after throwing two spears

All of which can be negated or abated by player tactics, or simply attempting to nuke the encounter. Or better yet, my party tended to try diplomacy on everything which worked about half the time.

BASIC TACTICS and LANDSCAPES can make the whole place so much more than just a 3 round game of rocket tag.

My party fought a flying pirate ship with their own, and remembered memorably the bandit leader who was actually a flame elemental in a suit of blackened armour who got away while leaving both ship half in flames.

They fought harpy lookalikes with an echoing sound attack that powered up the more it was repeated - they never got that hint but powered through it anyway.

They encountered a wounded, initially hostile military ship with a full armament of cannon and helped get it back up and running instead of tearing it down.

They hid from an invisible flying kirin casting spells at 300 feet and blasting them with lightning strikes instead of getting close, managing to sneak their teleporting monk close enough to pounce once they set the sky on fire with a large amount of vaporised alchemist's fire.

They still talk about some of the more interesting setpieces after years, because I had the time to craft them a bit more carefully and make them interesting. You can't do that with just throwing together some statblocks and making them power attack like idiots.

>>49340092
Not sure if pretentious autist or troll...

>>49340134
>Things that are not combat.
>You find gnomes
You just said noncombat encounters but now I have to make gnome statblocks for the ensuing slaughter??

>You find a woman tied to a tree.
I check my map. Clearly we've been going in circles.

>>49340113
> DM designs shitty "sandbox world"
> half-assed crayola map that he makes up shit about on the fly
> thinks drawing 5 huge ass marks hinting at "cool locations" then showing us the map isn't the same as plothooks
> rolls on the random encounter table to dish out our boring ass battles for the session

The most hilarious thing about this thread is that from a player perspective, this will NEVER be an issue unless your GM is mentally retarded.

Its one giant schrodingers cat. Nothing more or less. Is the cat dead? or is it alive? you are only sure once you see it.

By the same token, this only becomes a problem if "seeing it" doesn't change anything. The literal only time this is a problem is if the player knows there is ogre's to the north, but there shouldn't be in other directions.

At best, its a shortcut that can be used to save an hour or two of prep time for an inconsequential happening. At worst, get a new GM, because if you know this is happening he has screwed the pooch.

>>49340466
The quantum ogre thing, that is. Figure i should mention that. Double standards are most assuredly a thing players do and deal with, as well as GM's.

Poor wording on my part.

>>49340466
One silly thing about these ogres (which is a silly and combat-encounter-specific way to refer to node-based prep) and illusionism in general is the assumption that in a given group only one person GMs.

EVERYONE in my group GMs. They know that you need to roll with the punches and adjust things on the fly and straight up improv. They also know how to throw their PCs at hooks and how to help me out if I'm struggling.

>double standards
GMs are players."double standards" is just players with mismatched expectations. Like almost all problems that come up in RPGs

>>49340862
Agreed. I think a lot of problems around the table arise from too passive players, who just show up and expect to be entertained. RPGs are a communal effort and everyone needs to take part in crafting the story. GM is like the conductor of an orchestra not screenwriter and director of a movie.

>>49340121
Hell hath no fury like a PC who's been stolen from.

>>49340168
I don't run DnD.

Basically every combat my players run into has guns in it and the expectation that a single bad throw of the dice will floor anyone at any time because guns. When there are not guns there are usually supernatural things that are similarly lethal.

If dying suddenly sounds like something your character isn't into, don't get into lethal combat with people. This means either talking through things or jumping their asses so they get 0 response time.

>>49341177
There are a lot of non-gun RPGs that can give you that, just not D&D. I am currently playing The Riddle of Steel. Deadly as fuck. Botch your parry? Your head is flying. Though it's super skewed towards the players (they start off Conan level pretty much); pretty nice since otherwise any combat would probably result in a dead PC, especially if its ever more than 1v1. Wish they had introduced a mechanic to scale the characters up or down though.

>>49341271
Yeah, I know GURPS has some awful things for you if you take a rapier the wrong way (which is to say at all).

Guns just make it happen from across the room with little notice.

>>49339521
Hey we found an anon who knows why it's called a "quantum" ogre!

I think this argument boils down to a disagreement as to what the primary task of the DM is:
- 1 Side thinks of the DM as just the administrator of the random encounter tables
- Other side thinks of the DM as the author of plot hooks and encounters.

Both of these DM archetypes can be OK or they can be total shit. But I think that you can only have a really good DM if (s)he spends his/her time writing good NPC/Dungeon/Plot Hook ideas and gets the players to interact with them. No one reads randomly generated novels or watched randomly generated movies.

>>49339582
>a 10 minute break
"Booorrinnggg, dude just tell us where the dungeon is. Did you even prep interesting encounters for us this time? Or just doing off-the-cuff nonsense?"

>>49341689
Why would I even play with assholes like these? A guy's got to go to the loo sometime or other. Or for a smoke. Would they deny me a short break for a smoke too?

>>49325810
>Creating only combat-oriented characters. Literally tried to create a reporter/journalist who had no skills for his job, but was Rambo level killing machine.
>Complains about too many combat situations and no ways to avoid it.
>Literally provokes or starts fights by himself because this is the easiest way to sovle a problem in his opinion.
>Asks for more narrative or social game.
>Only to start a fight and complain about no other choices, because his character is useless outside of combat.

>posting in a VirtualOptim thread

>>49340168
>tfw my best received combat NPC was a wrestler that only had hp, ac, and modifiers made for him. He even had a very generic name: Joe. Every turn he would use a new improv attack (lariats, ora ora ora, climbing up the cage to dive onto his foe, ripping off the cage wall in a cage match and slamming it into the foe, bending the bars into gauntlets & superheating those with friction for fire damage added to punches (all of these were mechanically different)). I played X Gonna Give It to Ya whenever he landed an attack. Since the battle was close, I made his last attack self-damaging (he put all his strength into this strike) so that he and the PC he was fighting would both fall at once and have to make a short series of CON checks to see who could get up first and be victorious.

Later on, a party member obtained a magic coffee that could summon Joe to their aid for 3 attacks.

>>49339349
>QUANTUM OGRE = LITERALLY ENCOUNTERING AN OGRE EVERY SECOND

no

>>49328133
>>49328147
My group that I've been playing in got fed up with what the DM was doing. We had been playing a game of cat-and-mouse with an item two factions wanted, and neither of them would actually fucking tell us what they were planning to do but wanted us to take sides, despite a few godly diplo rolls by our rogue, so we ended up brutally slaughtering two essential plot NPCs instead. Good times.

>>49342234
His example was sort of a vague relation to the idea of a quantum ogre - you reskin it to make it more [at least seemingly] influenced by what the players are actually doing.
It's also a bit of a joke I imagine, what with that last line.

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>>49325839
>GM always rolls behind screen
>gets bootyblasted when players also hide their rolls and announce the result

>>49340106
...you're not very smart, are you? Let's assume that your "city-based sewer dungeon" has, oh, half a dozen ratmen and fifteen kobolds, and the ratmen are invading the kobolds turf as part of an inter-species gang war. The six ratmen are all in one room, forming a raiding party.

Suddenly, the players decide "we've had enough of cities, time to fuck off into the mountains". Oh shit, all that work on the cool idea for a dungeon down the drain, right? WRONG.

The dungeon still has half a dozen ratmen and fifteen kobolds, but it's now a small kobold outpost, which has just had a slaving party drop its goods off and head on. As such, the ratmen are now in exactly the same room on the layout, but that room is instead a prison-cum-torture chamber, and rather than being armed and possibly hostile, they're unarmed, in cages and possibly starving.

Boom. One dungeon, perfectly transplanted from a city sewer to a cave in the middle of the mountains. Just remove the sewerage channels and stonework walls in favour of rubbish heaps and unworked rock walls.

>>49342710
see
>>49339918

>>49340003
>>players ignore plothooks, demand less railroading
Fuck those cunts. If you think a plothook is a railroad, you have never been railroaded before.

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>after 2-3 sessions: "let's switch games!"
>"aargh, I won't play X because we keep switching games"
Not much of a double standard but a nightmarish loop I've been stuck on for years.

>>49342851
In the time you spent writing that post I could have designed a more interesting mountain based dungeon than butchering something I've already designed to fit.

Likewise if my players decide to return to the city to finish off that rebel threat I then have to go and design an entirely new dungeon and scrap the perfectly good thing that was there. Or are all your dungeons copy pasted copies of eachother with slightly different monsters because that's pretty bad.

>>49343056
That's why I can't play MMORPGs with my friends

>>49327960
This, so fucking much

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>Player wants to play in my game
>Creates loner, says he has no reason to interact with the adventure or party
>The group leaves his character behind, I tell him to make a new character
>He gets mad

>>49329874
I had to eat this twice as a DM so far In the same campaign

When the grand thief reveals his plan to hold the world's food supplies hostage, party just opened fire ignoring the silly Dr. Evil aspects of it. Really hoped to keep him around, but death is death.

Second one was a player who had "I hate my sister with a passion." as a key background trait. I finally revealed her and he went through every possible obstacle just to fill her head with lead.
My only complaint to him was that she could have at least said more than "Hi", and to explain what the hell is going on to the rest of the party before you blow up half the city to murder someone they all met for all of 10 seconds.

And no, "My character is the silent type" doesn't fucking excuse that.

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>>49333645
i'm curious, what does the word 'railroading' mean to you?
actually, i'm going to posit this question to the whole thread; >>49325810

i'm curious to know what it actually means to /tg/ nowadays.

>>49340065
>my sides
are ogres

>>49336489
Was it nice and non-invasive whatsoever?

>>49344265
>i'm curious, what does the word 'railroading' mean to you?

I generally see it as a plot that the players are invited to influence, and it is reasonable to assume that they could influence it, but all attempts to influence it are scuppered by the GM. I'm happy enough that there are plots in the game that occur without the interaction of the player; a backdrop of a nation at war, for instance, the situation of the war will change without the players and have an effect upon the game. If the game, however, was about the players acting as the high command for the nation, it'd be frustrating for them to not have any influence over the course of the war.

There's always going to be stuff that effects the player characters that isn't under the control of the players, and you should be open as a GM to expanding what player characters can influence. When it's too restrictive, for whatever reason, that's when I go "okay, that's railroading".

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>>49339349

>When a troll tries to shitpost and it ends up blowing up in his face.

Beautiful.

>>49342710
This player apparently wants to see what the game looks like when everyone rolls 20s constantly.

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>>49342710
>mfw I see someone trying to defend their shitty reasonings with false equivalence

>>49344105

That's always the fucking best.

>I'm a loner assassin who trusts nobody and will cut anyone for the right price!
>Why does nobody want me around them :'(

>>49344513
>When it's too restrictive, for whatever reason, that's when I go "okay, that's railroading".
Except you, as a player, can't tell that, unless it's fairly obvious, which means it's being done badly to begin with.
Your argument is entirely meta from the side of the GM, not the players who can only see the world as it comes to them.
Unless you read the GM's notes?

>>49344265

To me at least it's the when a plot becomes self-healing, as if player actions barely create ripples across the surface that fade quickly while the plot just meanders on.

I don't mind quantum ogres. If the DM wants to pre-work a fight against 1 big guy and 3 little guys on unstable ground and then just skin it appropriately, good on him. I don't care if paying for ship's passage going north and teleporting 12 miles south both lead to the "next" town in the adventure. That stuff doesn't bother me since it makes the game and the game group better: the DM takes less wear-and-tear and the game runs smoother.

What I detest, and what I consider railroading, is when the Gods Have Declared the Company of the Eight Shall Take the One Staff to the Mountain of Unmaking, Lead by the Wizard Dee Empeacy, that the journey will hit the following 14 events in 3 specific towns and 2 specific biomes, and that the outcome of every even will be the planed intro to the next even if the God's themselves must come down to ensure it happens.

Which they probably will have to once the players suss out that it doesn't matter whether they bring their best roleplaying and tactical combats or if they just opt to sit down cross-legged and hit themselves in the head with a boot until more plot happens to them, regardless of...anything, really.

Screw that. But if the DM wants to re-cycle his notes, that's fine by me,

>>49345671
That was a really minor point and I tihnk you're confused what he was saying.
He was saying that if the party feels like their actions have no influence when they should, it's railroading, which is something that could be pretty obvious without the GM's notes.

Taking his example, if you're a general of an army, and you lead troops to take over a fort, you should be able to take over that fort, even if it wasn't in the GM's plans

>>49345840
That's what I meant by railroading obviously and poorly.
A decent GM should be able to crunch the numbers on the fly, narrate the resolution organically.
However, if they fail and a player screams RAILROADING, I will politely ask them to leave my game, because clearly it isn't for them.

>>49339605
>Down
If they go down, they encounter the Dwarf Ogres.

>>49339600
Because the laziest form of storywriting or telling is when the phrase "no matter what happens, X happens".

At that point you aren't playing an RPG where you have something like choices that actually matter, you're playing Dicegame the Railshooter.

And that' not in a railroad story sense but in a 'this campaign is basically one of those arcade lightgun games that is on a track, so yeah nevermind, it's combat railroads.'

>>49344265
There's lots of different things I'd constitute as railroading.

>When any choice I make leads to the same preplanned dungeon/encounter even if its reskinned.
>When a choice I make is outright nullified because it doesn't fit the GM's plans. ' I want to swim across the river' 'Err, you can't because it's full of sharks.
>When any NPC has obvious plot armour.
> Pretty much any dice fudging.
>Any form of linear design with no flexbility. If you design a dungeon to go a-b-c-d-e sure it's lazy but whatever but if I find a way to skip fro A to D don't say I can't or just turn D into B.
>When my actions have no impact on the world. Like we kill the rebel leader but this changes nothing about how the rebels operate in the plot, the chain of command doesn't change, they don't disband or at least get nervous or something.

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>>49345997
>Because the laziest form of storywriting or telling is when the phrase "no matter what happens, X happens".
Look, we have been over this already: some GMs like to plan 3-4 encounters/events in their games. That doesn't mean that they will just railroad the players when they don't take the hooks!

>GM: "Alright, with your roll, you find out that there is an ogre north, a raiding hobgoblin tribe to the west, orc enemies to the south and a deranged druid to the east where do you want to go?"
>Players: "We want to go south-west, dodging the orcs and the hobgoblins if we can."
>GM:"... roll for it."

This is the appropriate response. However, if the players don't know what awaits them in either direction, it is completely fine for the GM to say
>"You encounter an ogre while you set out westward. He tells you in broken common that he wants you to hand over your gold."

>At that point you aren't playing an RPG where you have something like choices that actually matter
You're wrong. If the players don't know what options they have, any choice they make is going to just further the plot. They have the choice to take another path if the want to.

Here is a real example of railroading
>GM: "You hear rumors of a violent ogre attacking passerbys on the road north. There's nothing else of importance and the gates west, east and south are closed for maintenance."
This is railroading. Understand now?

There is a simple reason why GMs like the Quantum Ogre way more than what you purported to be better. And it's because it requires less work and prep-time for the GM in the first place!

Many GMs have jobs, families and other real life issues that they have to take care of before they do prep time. That's why they spend less time preparing every single detail of the campaign and instead prefer to wing it when the players unwittingly go off the road they set them on.

>>49346098
2,3,5 I'll give you. 2 & 5 are pretty much exactly what everyone thinks of as railroading. (To use a videogame example. Locked waist high fence gate? Better go find a key.)

1 is a reality of having limited planning time. Though, really a good GM will have a few options, and lead into them naturally.

4 is debateable. Some GMs completely wing stats and such, some are 100% by the book, no fudge.

6, though, is just bad writing on the GMs part. Even with a hard and fast railroad, logical steps should be taken to keep the story on track. In anything pretending to be sandboxy, it is absolutely pantsu on head.

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>>49346098
>When any choice I make leads to the same preplanned dungeon/encounter even if its reskinned.
How, exactly, do you know that they reskinned/preplanned a dungeon/encounter without metagaming?
>When a choice I make is outright nullified because it doesn't fit the GM's plans. ' I want to swim across the river' 'Err, you can't because it's full of sharks.
>When any NPC has obvious plot armour.
Valid points.
>Pretty much any dice fudging.
I disagree. And before you say "But then PCs can just rush a castle and fight an army outnumbering them 1:400 and win still" let me add that there are two kinds of fudging dice: when it is appropriate and when it isn't. If a player does something stupid, I would punish said player by having his character face realistic consequences. But I do not want to have to re-do half of the party every two sessions: that is not what consitutes fun, for me.
>Any form of linear design with no flexbility.
Re-designing and adapting dungeons and monsters so that they make sense for the place, time and stuff the players are doing is sign of flexibility and adaptability.
>When my actions have no impact on the world. Like we kill the rebel leader but this changes nothing about how the rebels operate in the plot, the chain of command doesn't change, they don't disband or at least get nervous or something.
Valid point. I don't see how this connects with fudging dice to make the story better and make the players have more fun though.

>>49346193

>GM: "Alright, with your roll, you find out that there is an ogre north, a raiding hobgoblin tribe to the west, orc enemies to the south and a deranged druid to the east where do you want to go?"
>Players: "We want to go south-west, dodging the orcs and the hobgoblins if we can."
>GM:"... roll for it."


>GM's think planning a bunch of fights based off of what direction you go is a choice
>GM's don't think this is super contrived and makes the game flimsy and video gamey

This shit really shows how the whole open world shit falls apart. If you make an open world where there's an encounter pretty much in every space the game becomes super shallow.

>>49346252
That was just an example: you can have any type of encounter
>a travelling caravan
>a friendly farmer you helped out before
>a halfling circus
>juggling orcs

It's my bad: what I was trying to say is that the Quantum Ogre mechanic works better than just pre-planning everything out down to the last detail because that is a lot of work that the GM has to put into the game. More than I would, frankly, ask any of my GMs to do.

>>49346299
Oh, I know that's what you were saying, I'm talking about the guy here who actually thinks preplaning every step of the way and has plans for every direction. Shit like that feels super unauthentic. It makes every step of the way an encounter, which just makes the world seem super cluttered.

>>49346342
Then we are in agreement: I also think that pre-planning everything isn't very good because most GMs don't have the time to actually do that.

I don't have it either: so there's that.

>>49346193
>players have no info on what is where so any way they go so it'll be an ogre
>all gates are closed except the one to the north which is said to have an ogre problem

Basically the same thing except the first one is pretending it isn't the second.
At least the second one you can expect an ogre and prepare for it.

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>tfw GM and all my encounters are quantum ogres
Hey you force me to DM so deal with it, I'm not writing a bunch of unused material.

>>49346467
I guess I explained it bad again.

Quantum Ogre works when players don't know where the ogre is. Do you follow? The players don't bother asking around town for anything happening and aren't aware of their surroundings.

They go out and encounter an ogre, because that is the first combat encounter that I had planned for when they leave the town.

Had they made a gather information roll or bothered some town guards about recent events, they would've known about the ogre in [insert direction here] but they didn't.

Quantum ogre is named such because the ogre isn't there until the players learn of it's location IC. Are we clear on this?

>>49346467

How are you expecting the ogre when you have no idea what's going to happen?

>>49346467
Except not at all.
If you think an encounter the players never knew about is on the same thing as forcing people down a literal path, you should stick with Skyrim.

>>49346519
Then again, I could just have them leave town and get ambushed by the ogre even if they were leaving to go bounty hunt a group of highwaymen.

And it still would not be railroading. Because, unless the players can read my mind, they do not know in the least what will happen next.

>>49346519
I'm pretty sure I follow it all, I was effectively just making fun of that specific example - meaningless choice isn't a real choice, but it's not exactly your fault if players don't investigate anything even a slightest bit. That is in relation to the "any way they go, it'll be an ogre."
Of course if they investigate a tad, find out the ogre is to the north, and then go west but don't investigate what is to the west, you insert one of your couple other pre-planned encounters, yeah?

>>49346533
Because I was apparently rumored in to it.

>>49346552
The end effect is the same: the players a're running into the DM's ogre with apparently no difference in anything else whether you like it or not. Do the players know that? No, probably not, but it doesn't change that that is what happened and that is how the game is being structured and 'influenced.'
Of course if you flesh out the example some more you can say the 'quantum' North Ogre [the violent attacking passersby] can be different from the South Ogre [the philosophical one] and whatever, as has been mentioned in the thread. So now it's different.
Skyrim is shit.

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>>49346670
>go west but don't investigate what is to the west, you insert one of your couple other pre-planned encounters, yeah?
Yes, that's what happens.

Always plan encounter so that it is fun and makes sense in the whole plot that is going on. Or not, if they (the players) aren't in a plot yet.

>No, probably not, but it doesn't change that that is what happened and that is how the game is being structured and 'influenced.'
There is absolutely nothing wrong with structure and influence of the GM in the game. The GM is there to provide both a good and entertaining story and engaging conflicts for the players to enjoy.

After all, even if a GM pre-plans everything down to the last detail, he does provide structure to his game and influences the players wherever they go.

I feel like this should be a golden rule nowadays
>It's not railroading if the players don't notice the tracks.
Because at the end of the day, the goal of a game is to have fun with other players. What matters is presentation: some people prefer more combat, others more slow-paced, intricate relationship-based games. Some players try to inform themselves of all of their surroundings, others head out on an adventure, without knowing what the next day will bring them.
All that matters is that they don't Feel constricted or forced to follow any rails or set paths.

The GM takes over the role of the housewife and brings their world to the table, in which the PCs can play all they like, just like a housewife cooks all the food that the guests, and she too, can eat.

>>49346670
>Of course if they investigate a tad, find out the ogre is to the north, and then go west but don't investigate what is to the west, you insert one of your couple other pre-planned encounters, yeah?
Yes, that's why it's called quantum. Once they know where it is it no longer can be wherever because it has a position.

> Do the players know that? No, probably not, but it doesn't change that that is what happened and that is how the game is being structured and 'influenced.'
Why does it matter if the players don't know? If they don't feel railroaded, it's not railroading.

Also the end result isn't the same. If players chose which path they go to it changes thing. If mountains are in the north they'll be in mountains if they go there, having the encounter just be there changes nothing for them, while having three closed gates that force them to the west does. They are being forced down a literal path and can't choose where they go.

>>49346799
>>49346811
I guess the part where I fundamentally disagree is in where "it's not railroading if the players don't feel railroaded."
I don't know if I can get past that.
Basically what's being said is to railroad without letting the players on to the fact and if they try to get off the tracks you loosen up as little as you can while still making sure they don't go "wait a minute, I'm on the ChooChoo Express aren't I?"
I can see why it's being done (so the GM has to do as little work as possible while providing a minimal amount of pre-constructed 'stuff' they believe is necessary), but...

But honestly I feel off about RPGs in general nowadays, so meh.

>>49346467
>Basically the same thing except the first one is pretending it isn't the second.
>At least the second one you can expect an ogre and prepare for it.

If the players want to plan out the route first, that's great. That's fucking fantastic. Then I can prepare that route that they're going to take for the next session. They'll know what's en route and they can take precautions, and I can also make plans of what the players will face, and give them ample choices to evade, sneak, murder or bribe their way through the various toll roads, bandits and the like.

If the players jump to a route without investigating what's happening, they're getting an ogre. The ogre is incidental on their way to wherever they're going, because the players are usually going with a plan in mind.

The ogre only sometimes attacks when the party has been being too chummy with folks instead of fighting and the combat specced guy is feeling antsy about not having had any combat for three sessions.

The choice here isn't about going north, south, or so on, but instead if the players choose to look into the dangers beforehand.

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>>49347020
>Basically what's being said is to railroad without letting the players on to the fact and if they try to get off the tracks you loosen up as little as you can while still making sure they don't go "wait a minute, I'm on the ChooChoo Express aren't I?"
That's correct.

It's a game of make-believe: all the GM has to do is make the players feel like they have impacted the world he created and it's good. He has to give them that feeling that what they do has consequences and they are really getting somewhere. They are reaching their destination. Just like a car. Or a bus. Or a train.

If, in the game you play, you notice the tracks then yeah, I would say you could cry foul and stuff like that. It means that you don't have an optimal/super-good GM and that's unfortunate. It happens.

I'm happy that you understand the nature of RPGs better now: I want to understand your point of view better too though, because I really think I'm missing some pieces of the puzzle. What exactly would you expect a good game to be? One where the GM plans for every direction the player could take, down to the small details? Or maybe one where the dice decide where everything at any time is going on?

>>49347020
My view of the whole thing?
A railroad is fine, as long as the players choose the station.

The players get to pick out which faction they want to align with, then generally go along with whatever I hand them until they bump into something that might make them reconsider, then either stay on the same tracks or change to a different set of tracks.

Sandbox games are pretty similar, if you've got someone giving out priority quests.

I've never once had the joy of having players actually take fucking initiative, so I'd be happy for someone to try that.

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ITT

>capcha: select the railtracks

>>49347116
>My PoV
I am very conflicted on the nature of RPGs and am at the moment mostly incapable of playing or GMing them due to stuff like this. It's very awkward.
Ideally this smoke and mirrors would not be necessary but obviously that demands enormous effort from a DM which is not exactly possible and unreasonable to expect so I'm stuck in in the middle of "get fucked" land.

The other alternative is a lot of dice influence which I'm a bit more ok with, but such a thing most likely requires buy-in from all players and then support from all players in responsibility of dice interpretation and connecting vaguely random shit. It'd probably need a lot of themed tables and other stuff so stuff isn't 100% random, as that just makes shit senseless and difficult to work with. This method is, like "GM makes everything ever" also sort of hard, and of course not everybody wants to have that responsibility.
Mythic GM Emulator can do a lot of this, actually, but it still needs to work alongside "logic" and a reasonable amount of 'fiat' [from the group] to introduce some stuff (eg it won't say there are 5 guards at the temple, you just have to go "oh, it says guards are here? Eh there'd probably be about 4 then since we know that the temple is a little on edge of late - that seems logical right everybody?")

>>49347256
Railroads are magic

>>49347256
ITT

Anon's buttblasted that the DM can't fill every single square with a unique amazing experience.because that would require 100's of encounters, most of which would be missed entirely.

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>>49347287
I think I see the picture now: it's definitely something that I would think more of as a boardgame than an RPG, though.

Or maybe it's just me.

Anyway, this anon will hit the sack now: best of luck and happy gaming!

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>>49347020
>>49347116
I disagree. This style of gaming essentially turns games into Telltale games. Sure, the first time around in one you really feel like every little thing and every big decision you make has real consequences.

Then you go and play it back only to discover no matter what you do, your actions result in the same outcome. Save one guy over another? The one you saved dies 2 episodes later, whoops.

It's an illusion just like the quantum Ogre, but games get some leniency. They are limited by nature. There can only be so many actions the game can account for since the game cannot update to fit the player's actions.

But that's exactly what a PnP campaign has over a Video game. It's supposed to be dynamic and reactive to the player because there is a GM sitting right there who can make those changes. This short cut makes your games no better than a video game, silently stripping agency right under the players feet and giving them an illusion of choice. Even if they don't notice it you as a GM have secretly decided that their action to move north or south does not matter at all. Its irrelevant. You've already taken steps to conspire against and undermine your players for the sake of laziness.

The illusion of choice, even if it's convincing, still means that your campaign is probably very shallow. How come this region is so oversaturated with ogres that no matter where the party will turn, they will run into one? Would the locals comment on Ogres being everywhere? What if the players simply run or sneak away from your perfectly crafted Quantum Ogre encounter? If you given them the choice to move regions how come you haven't prepared some encounters that would fit those new regions?

Using such illusions is shittier compared to being properly a prepared and flexible GM who can handle your players having choices. The Quantum Ogre is a crutch for a bad GM who stuck in the uncanny valley between being a rigid railroader, or being a skilled GM who can adapt.

>>49347457
>Using such illusions is shittier compared to being properly a prepared and flexible GM who can handle your players having choices. The Quantum Ogre is a crutch for a bad GM who stuck in the uncanny valley between being a rigid railroader, or being a skilled GM who can adapt.

It works a lot better in PnPs because you can't redo a campaign. If the players play another campaign with different characters, it might be a different encounter. You might throw the same ogre at a different group.

>You've already taken steps to conspire against and undermine your players for the sake of laziness

I've conspired to have a damn good ogre in reserve when the players don't tell me which way they're going in advance. If the party tells me they're going to the eastern fort with the expectations of scouting the bandits present, the ogre probably won't jump them.

>How come this region is so oversaturated with ogres that no matter where the party will turn, they will run into one?
>Would the locals comment on Ogres being everywhere?
There is only one ogre. The ogre is in the player's path, if they are moving swiftly along without any time for me to prep something in advance.
>What if the players simply run or sneak away from your perfectly crafted Quantum Ogre encounter?
Then that is a perfectly good encounter, and the Quantum Ogre has been defeated. Unless, of course, they come back way again...
>If you given them the choice to move regions how come you haven't prepared some encounters that would fit those new regions?
BECAUSE THEY SHOULD HAVE GIVEN ME MORE TIME THAN 30 SECONDS AND DECIDE TO ABANDON THE QUEST THEY WERE ON TO GO RAID A FORT THAT I MADE UP ON THE SPOT 30 SECONDS AGO WHEN THEY GOT BORED AT THE PUB.

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>>49347457
You clearly have no clue what you're talking about.

>Sure, the first time around in one you really feel like every little thing and every big decision you make has real consequences.
We're not talking about big decisions not mattering, we're talking about placing things in convenient places. If you kill the king the king is still dead, even if that throws the story into a loop.

>They are limited by nature
So is PnP, you can't fill every single square with encounters, so instead you make a few and use them when appropriate. This isn't a matter or reactions to the players actions, this is a matter of placing things.
If the players want to get a pirate ship fine, no one is stopping them with this system, the point is if they do that, I have encounters that can be used anywhere they go on sea because I'm not going to fill the entire ocean with monsters. Because honestly that's most over-saturated than having one encounter just happen to be there

>How come this region is so oversaturated with ogres that no matter where the party will turn
It's not, they just happened to go on the path that had an ogre because until they chose a path the ogre was in a superposition.

>Using such illusions is shittier compared to being properly a prepared and flexible GM
Having fallbacks is flexible. The point isn't limiting what the players can do, the point is allowing them freedom and having something to put in for them

You have absolutely no clue what your talking about in anyway. This has been explained numerous times in a simple way. At this point I would suggest reading about quantum mechanics because the term seems so vexing to you.

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>players always lethally end random encounters if given the chance
>get upset when one of the PC's dies after being hauled away by cannibals

>>49347558
Back to my boat example, if a boat can move 20 miles an hour, than in 12 hours the players can explore a total of 291220522.15064 miles of area.
Even if each square is 100 miles that's way too fucking much to fill every single one, and filling every single one would be super awkward and gamey, making each step a new event for no reason other than making sure they actually have something happen at least once.

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>>49347457
>You've already taken steps to conspire against and undermine your players for the sake of laziness.

>implying GMs should only ever plan for the next sessions. They are not allowed any breaks or to spend any time with their friends and family, because it's their duty to plan for everything the PCs will do the next session.

The player entitlement is strong with this one.

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>>49347558
Look, my problem with the Quantum ogre isn't 'having preset encounters and using them when convenient'. It's the idea of giving the player the illusion of choice. The first part where they can choose a path, but no matter what they will run into that ogre even if there is no real sense for the ogre to be.

Like if you give them the option to choose a path, they go north, and you decide 'fine they'll encounter an Ogre in their path' and use some prep work you had lying around, that's fine. But if you are actively deciding before the players even make a decision what the outcome will be, then why the fuck would you give them an opportunity to roam around at all?

>>49347743
I'm a forever GM so that doesn't really work for me.

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>>49344265
>i'm curious, what does the word 'railroading' mean to you?

Railroading is pretty simple. There's only one adventure, you can't choose to do something else, and deviation from the plot is not allowed. It's called railroading because you are stuck on the rails and can't get off them unless you derail the whole train and wreck the game.

Plot hooks, preplanned adventures and properly used quantum encounters aren't railroading, they're things the DM does to make your game interesting, and not a disjointed series of random encounters. People who decry these things as railroading have never been actually railroaded before - the difference is stark.

The quest proposed by >>49345802 is a great example:
> when the Gods Have Declared the Company of the Eight Shall Take the One Staff to the Mountain of Unmaking, Lead by the Wizard Dee Empeacy, that the journey will hit the following 14 events in 3 specific towns and 2 specific biomes, and that the outcome of every even will be the planed intro to the next even if the God's themselves must come down to ensure it happens.

That's railroading.

>>49347775
>Like if you give them the option to choose a path, they go north, and you decide 'fine they'll encounter an Ogre in their path' and use some prep work you had lying around, that's fine. But if you are actively deciding before the players even make a decision what the outcome will be, then why the fuck would you give them an opportunity to roam around at all?

Because the ogre is a throwaway random encounter, to be used when you've got nothing else prepared.

I find the quality of play is better when the GM has a few good, well planned encounters up their sleeve than to throw together a thousand low quality encounters.

If the players telegraph their choices in advance, then I'll whip something up that's special for them. If they don't have a clue where to go, I'll lead them down my pre-prepared path.

If they venture off into the unknown at the drop of a hat, the ogre that's been stalking them makes his move and pounces them.

(That, too, is due to the choices the players made. The ogre's still following that fucking ring of ogre attraction the players looted in the 4th session and never identified)

>>49347775
>But if you are actively deciding before the players even make a decision what the outcome will be
The players have so many choices, so many directions they can go, almost limitless, as I pointed out with my ship thing they'll have an area of 291220522.15064 miles. If I don't say, "Well eventually they should fight something, after all my group likes fighting and being on the open sea doing nothing the whole session is boring" I have an encounter ready, so that no matter where they go they will have a fun experience, because I'm giving them something they want in such a way that they thought it was completely natural.

You seem to care more about your ego than the players. The fact that your so upset that a GM did something you think is "lazy" even if the players never knew, shows that you have so retarded notions about running a game well.

The point of these encounters is when the player does something completely left field, which every single player will do all the fucking time, I have a simple way to keep them entertained. They don't lose any >muh agnecy like you seem to think, if anything it makes it more easy to retain because they'll notice that even if they go somewhere random things are still fun

Your dedication to understanding this is astounding.

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Scenario 1:
>the players will encounter a troll if they go to the left, and an ogre if they go to the right
>they go to the right
>they encounter an ogre
Scenario 2:
>the players will encounter an ogre whether they go left or right
>they go to the right
>they encounter an ogre

Seeing as how scenario 1 and 2 are completely identical from the player's perspective, why would one of them be okay, and one of them be a DMing sin?

>>49325810
>Quantum ogres
As I a GM, I readily admit that sometimes you have to 'railroad', that you have make up material in advance and lead your players invisibly through it.

The knack is to not make it ridiculously obvious that that is what you are doing, interweaving some improv in and allowing the players to have input by both not holding onto your plot too tightly and building points where decisions can be meaningful into the plot.

Question:
If one were to roll a d6 upon the PCs choosing a road to go down, with an even number meaning an Ogre and an odd number meaning lizardmen, would that be better, worse, or the same as the Ogre encounter being set in stone? Why?

What if the Ogre encounter is just one of six premade encounters for the area the players are in, and which one they face is determined randomly. Is this better, worse or the same as the Ogre/Lizardmen scenario? Why?

(Let's assume that when an encounter is used in a session, the GM will replace it's slot on the table with a new encounter. If the same encounter is rolled twice in a session, the table should be rerolled upon)

What if the GM has an ordered list of six encounters, such that the first time the players face a random encounter they face entry 1, then 2 and so on? Is this better, worse or the same as the previous two scenarios?

>>49347775
>But if you are actively deciding before the players even make a decision what the outcome will be, then why the fuck would you give them an opportunity to roam around at all?

Unless there's a possibility that the players will encounter nothing by roaming around, you are making your players lose agency by making every movement they take start an event encounter.

If you DO have blank spots, your players could go an entire game without seeing ANYONE.

Does that sound fun?

>>49326358
There's always that one person that'll call out quantum ogre even if there isn't one.

"You railroaded me into fighting the prince!"

"No dipshit the prince literally caught you trying to fuck his wife, and stealing his money. What did you think was going to happen?"

>>49348137
Leaving blank spots on a random encounter table is wasteful, but I don't think there's anything wrong with just not rolling for an encounter sometimes.

At least for a tabletop game. For a Quest, I think that's inverted.

The reason it's called the "quantum ogre" and not the "quantum royal assassination" or something like that is because it's a useful tool to use on things that aren't important. If the players have the option between rushing to the king's aid, securing the princess, or making a beeline for the enemy commander, but the king dies in every outcome because it fits the plot better, and there was no way for the PC to know this, then that's poorly done. You're raising expectations by giving the players a choice, and then disregarding the results.

If you give the players a fork in the road, and there's no indication that one is more likely to have ogres than the other, then there is no harm in putting the same ogre in the road regardless of which way they go. It's simply a tool for the DM to save some time on preparation, and none of the players have to feel cheated.

>>49348180
Generally, that's what happens. Random encounters only occur sometimes when I don't have anything better planned for a session.

>>49348180
>Random table
Why? These are almost never fun for the players

>>49348300
I would make encounters for my players before each session, balanced to party size and CR, then slot them into a 1d100 list. I had a blast.

>>49348217
This, the point I tried and failed to make is that many GMs tend to misuse Quantum Ogres to just secretly railroad the party. rather than just use it for random throwaway encounters. Much like how in Taletell games you are given a choice, but all those choices lead to the same outcome and are ultimately irrelevant. Its a roundabout railroad, you give the players the illusion that they can switch tracks, but ultimately each track loops back to the single rail.

>>49348018
I'd say the second case is the best one
Like:
Next main objective: Reach the evil warlock's castle
Most direct routes: The mountain pass, The forest
Encounters:

The Mountain pass:
>Ogre
>Giant eagle
>Merchant being attacked by brigands [Mission]: Help the Merchant who supplies the town from the other side of the mountain [Reward]: Safe passage, money, better disposition from the townspeople
>(Mountain fauna)

The forest:
>Beastfolk cultists
>Hunters (Can trade with them) (Will mention a man with a falcon looking for his son and to stay away from beastfolk)
>The falconeer's son [Mission]: Help the kid and his avian pet return to their home [Reward] The town's leader rewards you with money and influence for helping his grandson
>(Forest fauna)

Result: Party makes it to the town beyond the mountain and are now closer to the castle of the evil warlock
Note: The villager mention the missing kid and/or the fact that it has been a long time since the merchant came by, depending on which one they came across. Chance to go back and complete said missions, probably both in the same day since both the kid and the merchant had the chance to move closer to the town in the time the party did. There is a chance one of them didn't survive or made it on its own and doesn't need the party's help

Or something like that

>>49348312
You would make 100 balanced encounters for every session?

>>49348359
What if they say fuck it and go way past the castle than double back towards the castle?
Or they go as far as possible from the castle?

>>49348312
So you get the same end result with extra work, some of which probably won't be used, and with the possibility have having them face the same encounter twice? Why?

>>49325810

>When I run, and an enemy, ANY enemy, decides "fuck this" when things are going badly, and so much as tries to escape instead of fighting to the death, one player freaks the hell out, and will pull out all possible stops to prevent this and often be very annoyed afterwards if they got away even so. This includes his good-aligned characters doing everything in their power to cut down inferior foes that have thrown away their weapons and are just trying to run for it.
>This exact same player tends to give most non-mook enemies magic items specifically so they can instantly escape from losing battles whenever he GMs. Unlike when I GM, he doesn't tend to allow for opportunities to disrupt the escape attempt; if the rogue runs, he gets away, the cult leader that drew four opportunity attacks somehow has just enough HP to stagger through his portal and vanish, etc.

I don't even know why he gets so riled up when a fight is less than a complete massacre when he's a player. I've told them repeatedly that dead and fled are both win conditions to get EXP.

>>49348018
I suppose a interesting philosophical thought experiment is that; Suppose you have two tables, one for going left and one for going right, with the same encounters but in different orders.

The GM rolls a dice for the table and the players decide whether or not they take the left or right path. In this instance, the result is random but the choice that the players make will substantially change the encounter they face, so do they have agency?

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>>49348359
"We fashion an airship and go up"
"We dimensional jaunt through the plane of pineapple tarts to get to the castle"
"We decide to hire a wizard to teleport us there. Where's the nearest wizard?"

>sky ogre, pineaple ogre, ogre mage are ready to deploy at your command, sir!

>>49348436
They didn't level up every session. That, and old ones could be modified. They also weren't all combat encounters. They didn't necessarily need random encounters every session, either.
>>49348397
Why would they hit the same one twice? I would replace them once one would be rolled (though I don't remember them actually getting the same roll twice, now that I think about it.

>>49348439
Huh, that is interesting.
That approach could potentially allow the GM to foreshadow what's coming up, maybe allowing clued in players to turn back and go the other way

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>>49348476
>pineapple ogre

>>49348476
>Not making building an airship a quest in of itself
>Not having other planes pose their own challenges to survival
>Not having the wizard be be busy with something, which the players could help them with

It's not that hard to improvise something. It's handy to have a stable of npcs already statted out for any game, and it comes in useful here

>>49348415
Wouldn't know, i just made this on the spot
If we go by the following premises:
>The party has a reason to fight the evil warlock
>The party knows the evil warlock's plan and that it must be stopped
>The party hasn't yet done anything to warrant the evil warlock's attention

Then

Case 1 "Say fuck it and go past the castle": Well, if they don't fight it and there isn't anyone who knows about his plans and stops him, then he wins.
Case 2 "Case 1 but they go back": They gave the evil warlock more time to complete his nefarious deeds so he probably is more powerful now that he would be if they decided to attack him first. The party coming on top might still be a posibility if in that time they also became more powerful themselves
Case 3 "They get the hell out of dodge": I assume they decided fighting the evil warlock wasn't worth it and tried to escape before things got really ugly. The warlock wins and if he is particularly expansionist then the place the party chose to hide might not even remain safe for too long

>>49348476
Sound like you have some asshat players anon.

My response to the airship would be: "So you're going to spend the weeks constructing and airship. First of all you are in the middle of a small hamlet several leagues from the capital, where are you getting these supplies from? Can you even afford such supplies? Where are you docking the ship? Ect..."

>>49346670

>Because I was apparently rumored in to it.

You only hear about an ogre in one example though.

>>49348312
Isn't this table just a quantum ogre but randomized? It's practically the same thing in practice.

>>49348619
I said double back, so they go far away from the castle and come from an angle you didn't expect. So it's nice to have a preplanned fight if they do that so you don'r make it up on the spot, and more likely the encounter will be fun because of it.

>Player bitches how something "doesn't make sense" whenever the fiction even slightly inconveniences them.

>Expects me to ingrate his dog-taur ninja into my all human setting.

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>Some guys ask me to run a game based on an anime they like
>Refuse to learn a new system that fits it the best
>Im somehow a bad DM for not "figuring it out"
>They leave and tell other people im a shit

>>49348650
My thoughts exactly. How is "each direction holds a random encounter" any more or less agency-respecting than "the way you go holds a quantum ogre"? The player's choice is just as irrelevant either way.

>>49348650
No, it isn't. The quantum ogre is an encounter the players are guaranteed to encounter no matter which path they choose so long as they don't seek to establish which ones they will face if they take a particular path. A huge encounter table that is truly random is determined solely by luck.

>>49348583
"GM why haven't you prepared anything for us for building an airship? I want to get it now! We've only got 4 hours to play and waiting for an hour for you to make up something useful is slowing us all down, isn't it?"

"Well, you need to beat the ogre, who, uh, owns an airship core. Duh."

>cue hopefully exciting fight, until end of session and I can actually pull together the constructed airship adventures

>>49348621
>So you're going to spend the weeks constructing and airship-
"I call up my buddy with an airship that you forgot I had with that one time favour. It's written down on my sheet that you OK'd back 6 sessions ago for saving his niece. Should be good for an occasion such as this."
Come on, assume that they can actually use an option you hadn't thought of.
My players aren't asshats, they're just smarter than me because they've got 5 brains between them and I've only got 1.
Besides, which is more fun? Your way - "dude you can't build an airship on short notice, it's a terrible idea"
"Ok, but you have to fight your way past this ogre to get your airship. I'll think of what you can do on your airship later."

>>49348749
I never made every single path have a random encounter. Some did, some didn't. Sometimes they would have, but the players had had a tough fight right before it, so I didn't make them have another.

>>49348769
A 100% chance of encountering an ogre, no matter what the players do, is stripping them of agency.

A 50% chance to encounter an ogre, and a 50% chance to encounter a troll , no matter what the players do, is stripping them of agency.

Rolling a 1d100 to see what they encounter, no matter which way they go, is stripping them of agency.

>>49348803
You do understand, I hope, that by your logic, literally any number and combination of pre-made encounters is stripping them of agency, even if that list contains blank spaces with no encounters and the DM also chooses not to make them roll?

>>49348476
>"We fashion an airship and go up"
Now instead of landbound fauna you get to fight giant birds, the ocassional dragon, sky pirates, the weather, etc. Also, docking in towns without proper infrastructure might not be wise. Travel time becomes much shorter if the winds allow it.

>"We dimensional jaunt through the plane of pineapple tarts to get to the castle"
The dimensional plane of pineapple tart is an exact copy of the one the PCs come from, except everything is pineapple and tart themed.
Travel time remains unchanged
This dimension equivalent of the evil warlock is the dastardly pineapplemancer, his evil plan is making a giant hawiian pizza golem to rule over the land, which is also considered an unholy abomination even in this realm.
There is also a pineapple tart equivalent to the party that is trying to use their plane as a shortcut with similar success

>"Where's the nearest wizard?"
Where you'd get the money? Whatever, you make it there but now the evil warlock is aware of you.
Don't know what you guys are planning to do. I mean sure, he is quite weaker than if you decided to travel the way there but you are still way underleveled yourselves. You don't even have the surprize factor anymore
The wizard WAS an ogre mage, tho'

>>49348818
That's the point. It's not about "they always fight the same encounter", but about "a thing happens regardless of what they do".

That asshole that talks over everyone fucking else.

Jesus fucking christ, your idea are stupid and going to get you killed. Dominating the Commissar with your psyker powers is a terrible fucking idea.

Stop talking you fucking moron, I'm trying to describe the fucking scene.

>>49348818
>by your logic, literally any number and combination of pre-made encounters is stripping them of agency
Only if all roads have a 50% chance of troll/ogre.

If the choice they made changed the possibility of troll/ogre, then their choice matters.

If they took one road and that did not change the possibilities of what they faced, that is removing player agency from what is encountered.

(I'm not saying it's a terrible thing, just stating that)

>>49348769
The end result is the same.

>>49348769
Luck isn't player agency. You're not respecting player agency.

>>49348792
>I never made every single path have a random encounter. Some did, some didn't.
Truly stunning variety. Sometimes the designated event happens, sometimes it doesn't, based on your totally arbitrary decisions. A decision that can be made just as easily with a quantum encounter, I might add.

>Sometimes they would have, but the players had had a tough fight right before it, so I didn't make them have another.
This is the opposite of respecting player agency. You are not respecting their choice to press on despite a tough fight. Shame.

>>49348836
Except when they roll a blank, or I choose not to make them roll.

>>49348828
All of that is the exact opposite of the Quantum Ogre. By some of the posters logic, you're a god amoung men by being able to quickly adapt and improvise to the Player's decisions rather than having to say 'hol up guys you gotta beat this green nigga so I can have an extra week for me to prepare for your action'

>>49348860
No, it isn't. I don't understand why you would say otherwise. One is pre-determined, one is random. Those are not the same.

>>49348865

Okay, now I see you're just trolling.

>>49348773
I have no real qualms with letting the players have something I just don't them to simply assume they can have whatever they want without any work.

If they actually did that quest you where talking about then that's a great use of in game fiction, if it's some small section of their backstory that isn't important and doesn't impact their character in the slightest I won't let them have it.

If they're just going to drop everything they have and build an airship they're going to have to realize that it's pretty costly and time consuming to do so.

>>49327839
>pisses and moans about OP's thread
>still continues to use /tg/ instead of making interesting discussion and probably sucking at it.

>>49348897
>now I see you're just trolling.
You're just spectacularly missing the point.

There is no difference between saying "if the players go left or right, they encounter an ogre either way" and "if the players go left or right, I roll on an encounter table either way" in terms of player agency.

>>49348928
Then you tell me. What would respect player agency if both pre-determined and random encounters don't? You've defined all options as disrespecting player agency.

>>49348897
>One is pre-determined, one is random. Those are not the same.
For the players it's the same.

>>49348436
it's a dice game. rpging means exposing yourself to uncertainty.

>>49348897
Holy shit it's been so long that I thought Someone else was the Virtual Optim.
Totally forgot he was the guy that wrote the Empersque stuff.

I'm going to go lay down now and think about what has happened over the past few years and possibly kill myself.

>>49348856
Except it's not at all. The idea that every single choice a player makes has to effect every single thing is absurd.

Choose to go east or west? Sure, your decision will matter - next session, after I've prepped some material for the area. That means you are exercising agency, regardless if today's session is the same either way. It's only disrespecting agency if the choice the party made runs directly counter to the result. If the players made the choice to run from the ogre encounter and successfully do so, then making them fight the ogre again anyways is disrespecting agency (provided the players don't later make choices that would make them fight the ogre, unintentionally or otherwise).

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>>49348897
>>49348953

No, he's not trolling.

Consider your method (broadly speaking)
OPTION 1:
"Players choose to stay at the bar"
GM rolls on random encounter table; 50% chance of ogre, 50% chance of troll

OPTION 2:
"Players go into troll infested woods, hunting for trolls"
GM rolls on random encounter table; 50% chance of ogre, 50% chance of troll

The players have no way here to change the possibilities of meeting a troll, or changing what happens to their characters. Their actions of going to the troll woods, or staying at the bar, do not matter, as they will still have a 50% chance of meeting a troll or an ogre.

This is different from this which uses player agency:

OPTION 1:
"Players choose to stay at the bar"
GM decides there is no hostile encounter present, rolls the bar rumours table.

OPTION 2:
"Players go into troll infested woods, hunting for trolls"
Troll woods have been invaded by ogres who are genociding trolls.. 99% chance of finding ogres, 1% chance of finding trolls. Sucks to be them.

Here, the player's choice has affected the outcome of the random encounter.

>>49348680
Of course it would be preplanned. The same guards that were there in the first place, probably toughter now.

When did i give the impression that i was arguing against having preplanned encounters?
I make lists of what could be encountered in the "critical path" of the plot and some for the areas outside of it. If they decided to stray the fuck out of the plot relevant areas i could improvise more encounters. That's not the issue, but at some point i would go

>Guys, let's stop for a second. I thought we agreed to this kind of campaing when we started, why are you ignoring it all of sudden? Just tell me, are you going somewhere with this, trying for some unortodox approach? Would you prefer if we did something else? Were you expecting something more sandbox-y? If so, give me a week or two and i could set one for you

Like, i fucking love sandboxes. I wouldn't mind setting one for them

>>49348963
>it's a dice game
Not everything has to be a random table.
Uncertainty that adds nothing but tedium to the players and GM isn't good

>>49348953
How about the actual decisions of the player? Let me break it down for you:

>not respecting player agency:
>both roads have no encounter
>both roads have an ogre
>both roads have a roll on the random enemy table

>respecting player agency:
>one road always has an ogre, the other has nothing
>one road has a random enemy table encounter, the other always has an ogre
>one road always has nothing, the other has a random table enemy


Note that this isn't a bad thing, per se, because as said before, it saves time. Just understand that whether or not the encounter is random doesn't change the amount of agency the players have.

>>49348982
>The idea that every single choice a player makes has to effect every single thing is absurd.

Hey, I put in the disclaimer that it's not really a terrible thing.

Besides, the quantum ogre is only after them because they stole that ogre attraction ring in session 3.

>>49348953
Having defined encounters for both options. Which you don't reuse, because that's apparently disrespecting player agency!

>>49348995
Except I said that I didn't always make them roll for encounters. I also only made them roll during travel.

>>49348995
>City Guards
>fly speed
Why

>>49348999
In your original example, you listed two routes the castle and the encounters on those routes. He's saying that for some reason the PCs decided to find a third route to the castle (one you had not considered) and do that.

You have two options - either reuse one of the encounters your PCs never ran into (the quantum ogre), or improvise an encounter.

>>49349102
Then generalize the example more. Make it a mountain and a forest instead of a bar and a forest. The logic should be plainly obvious.

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>>49349102
That means that your players had agency for when they weren't travelling,

AND when you did roll for encounters, they had no agency.

This is not a disparagement of your GMing skills (especially when I only have the one or two ogres ready instead of a whole list), just making a note that by a technical reading of "I roll a dice to decide what bumps into the players on their travels" is removing the player agency WITH REGARDS TO THAT SINGULAR ENCOUNTER.

Frankly the whole thing has been blown out proportion, but eh.

>>49340113

Based Anon knows how to play some fuckin' D&D.

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Considering we're talking about Quantum Ogre and player agency: would it be fair that creating a quantum ogre based on the culmination of the player's decisions up till that point still counts as player agency?

For example: "You destroy the lich's phylactery and destroy it's soul. The magic still left in the orb causes the pieces to disappear in an explosion of light."

5 Sessions Later

"Walk along the road and you encounter a man with a jewel fragment embedded into his head"


Moreover isn't how a party deals with a given quantum ogre considered player agency?

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>>49340113
>>49349349

I agree with you brother, that Anon has the right idea.

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>fellow party members want to go do different things
>we decide to split up
>half of our party dies to an encounter
>ask wtf DM
>says we shouldn't have split up

If we didn't split up we would have been there all night doing everything people wanted to do

>>49340113
>be DM
>be all about player agency because I know "plots" have nothing to do in RPGs
>design sandbox world with lots of variety and fun content to go find

This is where you're credible.
But players having an amazing time? Not unless you're lucky enough to have a group that always wants to do the exact same thing. The second you dangle chocolate ice cream and strawberry ice cream you're party gets divided. Now some are having an awesome time while others are like meh or don't even like ice cream.

>>49349525

> orge based on player decisions

That's kinda fine dude. If say a party decides to piss of this one band of thieves a few towns back, it'd totally be fine to craft up a bandit attack on them in the wilderness a few sessions later. That's the player's decisions and actions having an effect on the world that came back to bite them in the ass.
The thing is, there should still be some opportunity for the party to either change the circumstances of the encounter, like noticing they're being followed, or they get jumped coming out of a cave when they left the horses unattended without a lookout to warn them. It should still be affected by the actions of the players.
If your players found an Ogre cave while travelling through the mountains and they stole a bunch of his shit while he was out stealing goats for food or something, yeah, later on they may see that Ogre again since it's been chasing them trying to get its shit back, but if they've been not going at a rapid pace, or zigzagging a bit or something, they may hear some travelling merchant talking to the barkeep about tales of this ogre that's been tramping through all these villages (that coincidentally the players have also been passing through) and so on.

>"Walk along the road and you encounter a man with a jewel fragment embedded into his head"

Dude, that's metal as fuck. Use that shit that's amazing, especially if the finding of these shards is then a continuous occurrence as the pieces have been doing weird magical things across the land where they manifested.

>>49348836
things should be happening regardless of what players do though, unless they were doing nothing.

Sounds to me like "player agency" is entitlement and promotes a "I only play games I win" attitude.

>>49349214
Oh, i only listed two "most direct" routes for brevity.
Any other route might also be valid if they can afford the time

>>49348891
Well, the second case was an explicit "Quantum Ogre" but if my players came up with something as nonsensical as pineapple tart dimension wormholes then i would interpret it as them starting to get bored and that is the point where i shot back with nonsensical stuff like a pineapple tart mirror dimension

>>49349709
how is forcing chocolate ice cream on the party better than giving them the choice of chocolate or strawberry?

>As GM forbids everything, hinders and negates any interesting ability
>As Player he wants everything, from every source ever, even untested hombrewed shit, wants his character to always succeed and his broken gimmick never countered

>>49350239
If you can consistently predict every route your players can take, your players are nothing like mine.

>>49350353
Oh, i don't divide encounters into routes, but zones/biomes/whatever.
Anything they encounter when they choose said route is because of which zone it is, then i improvise some way to make the encounter more memorable.
But yeah, we are all newbies so they don't tend to make too many outlandish choices

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Whoa, I'm starting to get it now.

All these ass-blasted illusionists are under the sway of the Tyranny of Fun. They think that every single moment in their tabletops has to be Drippingz Vith Teh Awesomes, and so they eliminate those parts of the game which would seem to be tedious or meaningless, but wind up throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

Which is usually symptomatic of using a rotten rules system where even minor combat encounters take ten or fifteen minutes to play out. Well of-fucking-course you don't want to have to deal with genuine random encounters in a system like that. Odds are, you're playing Caster Edition, so you don't even have the luxury of 2d6-based reaction rolls which ensure that far more than half of all random encounters are going to be role-playing encounters rather than combat encounters. And of course there's no tension, because you're not playing a resource-management, treasure-hunting and wonderment-of-exploring-the-unknown sort of game at all; you're just there for a <nerd voice>"""story"""</nerd voice>.

Fuck that shit. Fuck the d20 System and every one of its worthless iterations.

I mean, have you even tried playing D&D?

>>49350775
Oh, boy, it's the stupid obnoxious post with no semblance of intelligence who has no clue what's going on, but think's he's being smart.
I'm not even sure if this is some retarded form of bait.
You're not even making points, just vague complaints.

>>49350775
Please just roll over and die already.

Oh, and take your gay forced memes with you.

>>49350775
>the luxury of 2d6-based reaction rolls which ensure that far more than half of all random encounters are going to be role-playing encounters rather than combat encounters
tell me more about whatever this is

>>49351085
AD&D has a reaction table for random encounters and things. 2d6 on the column appropriate to the PCs actions (aggressive, etc.).

>>49350775
>People actually think having a DM just be a chart interpreter is a good thing
>People think have a consistent story is bad even if it possessively impacts gameplay and makes the players feel like they have a real part in the game

>>49351189
I think i could code something that works like that if you give me a couple of hours and don't care about graphic interfaces
C++, of course

>>49351253
>C++, of course
am I being rused

>>49351295
I said "if you (...) don't care about graphic interfaces"
I mean a chart interpreter with no consistent story and a very basic engine for D&D.
If only to further exemplify how empty a GM would be under the restrictions of the anon you are quoting

>>49351362
Nah I was just sort of wondering why C++ would be the default/"of course" for such a mundane low-intensity task.
Compared to something like Python which is way quicker to write.

>>49351437
Because it's the language i enjoy coding in the most
Then again, i think you could implement something less refined in Excel if you are so inclined.

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>>49340253
>I check my map. Clearly we've been going in circles.
I gotcha