Absolutely love letting procedure generate a narrative. Making stuff up to explain what procedure generates turns into epic stories, humor... The total package.
I have to shout out the Dungeon Minister here. I enjoy how he backfills his plots. He makes an event and then asks why it happens. A lot like your adventure design (personal favorite of mine) series but in reverse
I seem to fall into the middle somewhere. For me, procedure is a way to bring the narrative and as such there is a certain looseness and vagueness to it when I feel the time is right for such things.
I love procedural for exploration and for prep and for a lot of my “behind the screen” stuff. My players like a good narrative, as do I, so figuring out how to blend the two has been a big focus for me. I love the surprise that procedural brings. It adds situations I have to figure out on the fly and I don’t like making decisions about stuff and letting dice drive where I have any indecision. So for the bandit example, I would definitely roll to see what of a number of situations the bandits found themselves in.
Happy New Year, Daniel! I like to set up a large batch of NPCs, or "actors", within an adventure. I outline their wants and goals, what they hate, etc, but nothing to the extreme of "if x happens they do y". This helps me greatly when running my game as a lot of my play is procedural, but when NPCs show up or monster have interesting reaction rolls it let's me throw a few extra spanners into the works on the players. I'm definitely a "the procedure feeds the plot" kind of GM.
Blending the two together seamlessly is an art I personally find narratives to be easy for me and then whoops I forgot some procedure I think soloing can help GMs to remember procedures so they become almost natural and therefore don’t interfere with the flow of the narrative With that being said I use 3rd person speech for unimportant npc’s and 1st person for important ones I also try to avoid overly descriptive details unless it’s something important so players don’t ask me twenty questions at every turn Sort of like reading a pulp fiction novel I don’t like it when players become complacent I think there should be a certain amount mental pressure like taking an exam where snap decisions are necessary and quid pro quo is the staple
I don't go so far as 'soloing', but I do try to put myself into the situations. I might walk the streets of a city in my mind's eye. I might put myself in the shoes of NPCs to see how they act and react.
I suggest casting light on the nock of the arrow. I shot an arrow with light on the head of the arrow at an ogre, and it went so deep we couldn't see the light
I will follow procedure while running aspects of the game. For example, if they are crossing a desert then they will need to track resources and I use the game mechanics to check for heat exhaustion (assuming a hot desert), but I would never roll for the situations. I create the world and background by bringing together whatever influences are floating about in my mind. I might look at encounter tables for inspiration, but I wouldn't roll on them as I prefer to set the scene deliberately. Usually, I take a step back from a situation and try to determine how the various actors got there and what their motivations might be. A bandit camp should not be a group of faceless, nameless thugs. It's dispossessed farmers and poachers and drunks all on the run. Some might be brave, many will be terrified. If I know the backstory I know if they run, fight or talk.
Hey Daniel, Happy New Year! Really enjoy your videos brother. I've been play and DMing D&D since 1979. I really enjoy all the aspects of the game and adventures. Keep up the great work. Blessings
I feel like the procedure makes the narrative more interesting for me as a DM and more unexpected for both myself and my players. Procedure taken to an extreme is not something that I enjoy, as it encourages play that is video gamey (i.e.: taken to extremes you have players in 5E who would prefer to use the rest mechanic after every significant combat) but using procedure both to provide an actual proper game framework to work within and also to inject uncertainty are both things that I really enjoy; even simple things like the old reaction and morale checks: the dice sometimes lead the game in very interesting directions that narrative alone wouldn't have.
This is an excellent video. The procedural vs narrative are simple concepts but easy to forget or not realize how they complement each other at the table. You articulated this all very well and made me realize a few things i hadnt thought of before!
I tend to use the term "scenario" for what you seem to denote as "plot." I feel it is more neutral and tends to have less connotations that bring outcry in the OSR. "Plot" seems to suggest an arc of events going forward, while a "scenario" is rather neutral in that it is merely a set of circumstances and starting points laid out (with the implication of consequences according to the set of elements present), the stakes and the trappings of the game, which seems to be what you are going for.
This. I create situations. I create NPCs that want to do things and then you drop the PCs in. The story is what emerges. The 'plot' is someone, after the event, describing the core elements of the story.
I'd like to hear and know more about procedural hex crawling and generation. I'm new at it and play a very simple but fun way for now. However I'd love to see and find more content covering the procedural methods
Very good video. I definitely fall right in the middle between procedural and narrative. I like to use the procedural method to build out the map region by myself. Kind of a solo game for myself. I also love using procedural to see what unfolds. But all in all just want a fun and engaging story in the end.
Procedure is the riverbanks, Narrative is the flow of the river, if that makes sense to anyone else. Both are critical to a good game, the trick is the proper balance between the two.
I would say I am very much on the narrative end of things, with almost no use for procedural techniques. Plot is indeed not a word I use, since it has too much of a connotation of things are determined already. Thus I prefer words like premise, theme, or scenario to make clear that I use only a framework but let the narrative unfold during play. And well, since I play more story games, even combat is usually more narrative than procedural for me. And my own game I am working is going to be playable solo, and still the procedural elements to facilitate that are much more bend to narrative purposes than to simulation as other games opt for.
This describes my approach too. I try to create an interesting world, with interesting things going on, that would unfold with or without the PCs. I try to do this at lots of levels, from the gods in conflict to a ferryman looking for his lost daughter. And then you wind it all up and drop in the PCs. I'm still looking for the perfect system. Unfortunately, I like high-crunch, detailed chargen (GURPS or Hero), but don't enjoy running crunchy games.
Great video and Happy New Year! I have a lot of thoughts (Gods help you) on this topic. 😛 In my experience, a mix of both is the best way for me to run a game. The procedural aspect is the skeleton that the narrative puts the flesh on. Donjon is a useful tool, though it isn't a fire and forget solution for everything so it needs to have the DM adding to or subtracting from what it gives you. I mostly use it as a random map generator when I just want to have something spur my imagination and a map is usually the easiest starter for my imagination that donjon can give me. NPCs are a fun way of getting story ideas out there. I've had adventures written simply by seeing how the PCs interact with unconnected NPCs. I do a fair amount of creative freelancing since players will usually wander off following a shiny object that possibly only exists in their imagination and now I've got to create an adventure for that. 😀 And that's why I have to have a mix of both pillars. My procedural self will be in charge at the start and it will have half a dozen frameworks of adventures ready to go, and when the players decide which one they are ready to pursue my narrative side is there to add in the additional details to tie things together, to make connections that make them feel invested, and to make them feel in control of their own fun. Which, really, is why the game lasts. Another procedural note: many people build a storyline and then work to get the players drawn into it and then (hopefully) they'll follow the given storyline to the end. For me, that's a procedure I've left behind. My procedure is an adventure web. Of the half a dozen aforementioned adventure concepts, each has its own story to follow and they're all somewhat different. I have my "rumor box", a small card box with four or five rumors (true or false) about each of the adventures so the party can choose which they want to follow. At the start of session one each player draws a rumor or two out and then they share and discuss what their characters have heard. Each adventure storyline will generally be self-contained but it may link to another storyline too, continuing to give the players the option of what they want to do. Now the reason for the adventure setup being the framework instead of a complete adventure is for the players' choice. If they choose to hunt down the bandits and try to recover the captured goods for the monetary award to buy better gear and avoid the goblinoid caves which seem to be lighter on the reward side, that's fine. They complete the bandit adventure over a few sessions and follow the hints there to the power behind them and have some luck before they determine that they need to get better before they go further because attacking a bandit leader in his keep sounds unwise for a level 3 group. So how about those goblinoid caves now? That sounds more manageable than storming a guarded keep where the big bandit leader is. They are too strong for a small group of actual goblins, as my first level adventure originally had, so I'll change it so that the enemies are now some goblins but quite a few bugbears too. I can easily narratively attach that to the procedural framework and off they go to hack at some goblins and bugbears! After the goblinoids have been slain they explore the caves further and I decide that in a room they find a note that is from an "advisor" who has been coming to direct them in their activities. Someone was paying them to raid outlying farms and the local towns? Perhaps it is a clue that leads back to the bandit leader and can tie two separate adventures together in the adventure web! Or perhaps it leads off in another direction altogether. But just having frameworks ready to go means that I can more easily react to whatever wild hair inevitably possesses the players to change directions and chase a new lead. Thankfully after 40+ years of DMing I'm pretty good at not flinching and rolling along with them. 😀 It amuses me that one of my players keeps a "loose ends" list from adventures that the party wandered away from but they'll get back to at some point. It has around eighteen things on it last time I saw it. 😀
@@BanditsKeep I keep reminding him of that when I talk to him, and his list of "Party members to let die first" which would keep changing, sometimes between rounds of combat. 😀 I keep trying to get him to move back to town and to get his priorities in order: Gaming comes first through ninety-fourth, THEN he can start adding in real life stuff! But he keeps whining something irrelevant about only having a year (or so) until he finishes his biomedical engineering doctorate, the slacker. GAMING FIRST! 😀
I guess I think in terms of the ol' "right, left or straight ahead" in terms of decisions players can make, then "rooms" are the "beats", like "development", or "confrontation" and "revelation" wherein procedural elements relate to the narrative choices and these two elements, or pillars intersect/interact. You chose the gnarled forest path which brought you to the oracle who wanted lunch. You went about the forest generating some semi-random results and then returned to the oracle with some marshmallows, a can of Coors and some cold cuts. The oracle says "I really wanted pizza" and kicks out a rando procedural of imps, or wild hogs or whatever is on your table of "disappointed oracle monsters" the players have to fight. Yes, the players could have gone back to the "left-right-straight ahead" and gotten a pizza or calzone from town, but they had the open choice to cast about the wood too. Idk... is that "both"? Sorta?
Happy 2023!! I love your videos! I always watch one or two of them to get my mind in the game when GM prepping! Currently listening while I'm doing liquor ordering for my bar. So with that i wanted to know, what is your audio set up?!?! Your sound is perfect and clear!
I liked this very much. I totally agree with you, Daniel, I tend to keep myself in the middle between procedural and narrative balancing at will and based on the needs. I do montages when needed, I roll for outcomes when needed, actually to me it's players and common sense that make that need. The game should flow, being kept interesting and adventurous, players should perceive danger, risk as well as challenge and chances of success, and these are managed not by a binary choice between procedures and narrative, black or white, B/X or 5e. I play every edition with the same spirit by using the tools I'm offered with the same alchemy of abilities I developed in time. Even if the manual doesn't mention it, when I, the DM, decide that the elf has a 2 in 6 chance of finding an healing leaf in the woods I do not give Nature check any chance and go for a d6 check I do myself behind the screen because that's how I feel correct managing the thing: I decide the elf for sure would find it, but it doesn't depend by her if the leaf actually is around. To me procedural and narrative have always been one. Thanks for sharing the links to resources below. I' m loving the S&S adventure creation tool!
Very good video, as always. I got into the hobby in the early 2000s as a young lad and have always played and ran more narrative based games. However, the past like 2 years or so I have fallen so much in love with the osr style that I am really trying to challenge myself and step outside of my comfort zone to run and enjoy games differently. One of those ways is using procedures established by many of the older editions.
Hi Daniel, happy new year, I hope everything went well! I believe that the narrative itself may have bits of procedures in it as well. For example, in Matt Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming, he presents an idea called combat fu, that essentially says that is possible to negotiate different effects during a combat according to the conditions presented in the narrative. Let's imagine a monster that has a strong carapace composed my scales and the fighter declares that his action would be hitting one of the scales in order to remove it and create a gap in the carapace, exposing the flesh. This would require a better roll than a normal hit, but would result in a weak spot to be explored in the future, allowing them to cause more damage hitting that specific spot, for example. Even though there are no rules being applied, I still see negotiations like the one I described above as a procedure, and they happen all the time during the game! Sorry for casting a wall of text in the comments, but I'm really enjoy talking about this topic and got a bit excited hahahaha, keep up with the great work you've been doing man, bye!
Procedures make sure you land the plane with certainty you put the wheels down. When there is a lot going on, like at the table during a session, that helps a DM avoid overload. Procedures help the DM resolve high stakes situations in a way that is perceived as fair. The randomness within the procedure, however, provides a DM the prompt necessary to depart from the current flow of events and create something new. Without the random elements, your narrative is subject to too much of your unconscious way of railroading the characters. With randomness, players and the DM can accept bad outcomes when it was the dice that did them wrong. With narrative alone, the DM that creates an unbalanced situation that kills a PC or creates a TPK is a lot harder for the players to swallow.
A lot of people tend to have an issue between “sandbox” and narrative. Which I go in between for the most part. Might start a game with a very railroad city siege situation. Whenever it’s resolved there will likely be a few sessions of whatever the party chooses to do. But oh no the evil wizard who ordered the siege a few months ago is up to even more nonsense and now you have to go take care of that
Hi Daniel I had a procedural question. How come in OSE in the encounter procedure suprise is checked before monster distance? In B/X distance is checked first and then suprise,curious as to why its different and what are the benefits..
I'm about to run The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg procedurally. However, I'd rather stab myself in the eye with a frozen dog turd than go through the PC mapping process(let's turn a 4 hour day of adventure into an hour of adventure and 3 hours of cartography!!!) I turned each floor of the dungeon into a choose your own adventure style bullet point list. That way they encounter everything the dungeon has to offer but really only need to remember vague directions and number of turns traveled. I'm also going to use the 1 in 6 chance of getting lost each turn adjusted by the wisdom bonus of the lead character in marching order.
If that works for you, go for it. Having played part of the dungeon, I find mapping to be a fun challenge- I can’t say it slows down play for my group, but every group is different.
@@BanditsKeep I run mostly for adults over 40 that don't have a lot of experience playing. If I was like "you'll need to map not to get lost" I'd start losing players lol
I quick google found this - not sure if it is an updated or an older version - but it looks to the the same - just different layout - www.hyperborea.tv/uploads/4/4/6/6/44662451/random_sword_and_sorcery_adventure_generator.pdf
Hi Daniel I had a quick question. I was on your blog site and i saw you have a Calander with graph paper that you are writing your adventures on, do you have a link where I might purchase this? thank you
Wow, you're running a solo game on your other channel? I would love to see that, I have been thinking about how to approach OSE solo, but I can never get going. Is this on your actual play channel? What's the title of the video?
Donjon is a great resource. Giving the players content (BBEG) to interact with is not railroading. Railroading is forcing them to solve a problem your way and only your way. Intentionally avoiding DM prepared material is being a bad player.
Making the bad guy is not railroading, setting it up so the players HAVE to fight them can be. Of course I am pretty much against the idea of BBEG in general so that is a factor 😊
The players should be free to do what they want. Not being able to cope with the sandbox - either through ludicrous prep or improv or both - is being a bad GM IM!HO 🤐
@@davidmorgan6896 - No. Running a sandbox game doesn't make you a good DM. The DM should run the game the way that they enjoy and the players should agree to play in that game. Not all games must be sandbox. The player has the responsibility to find the game they want to play in. My last sandbox game had a terrible DM.
@@sleepinggiant4062 I agree, though I didn't say the good GM should always run a sandbox. But, you must accept that they must be capable of running a sandbox. A 'good GM'. The ones you look at and think 'they're good'. Running a sandbox has to be part of a good GM's toolkit. That assertion doesn't speak to their preferences or the validity of other ways of running a game. If you watched someone fumble because the players went off-piste would you still think they are good?
I don’t see this as a spectrum, but rather as orthogonal issues. Consider the claim that a combat heavy ruleset is for combat focused games and the counter claim that a combat heavy system is for games focused on things other than combat. The original claim is the common one everyone knows, while few know of, and fewer ascribe to, the counter claim. Similarly, procedural and narrative can each have mechanics, and I am on the counter normal side here, I prefer procedural mechanics because I don’t need mechanics for narrative, yet I play narrative games.
@@BanditsKeep As much as well all want to believe our voices and our wisdom are engaging and entertaining, they aren't; especially in a long-format style. If you had a podcast where you were interviewing someone, or had playful banter with a partner, then sure. In the world of teaching you want to engage your audience's eyes as well as their ears. Thanks for what you do. I am enjoying your channel.
Absolutely love letting procedure generate a narrative. Making stuff up to explain what procedure generates turns into epic stories, humor... The total package.
For sure
I have to shout out the Dungeon Minister here. I enjoy how he backfills his plots. He makes an event and then asks why it happens. A lot like your adventure design (personal favorite of mine) series but in reverse
Good point, Dungeon Minister is a great example
I seem to fall into the middle somewhere. For me, procedure is a way to bring the narrative and as such there is a certain looseness and vagueness to it when I feel the time is right for such things.
Same
I love procedural for exploration and for prep and for a lot of my “behind the screen” stuff. My players like a good narrative, as do I, so figuring out how to blend the two has been a big focus for me. I love the surprise that procedural brings. It adds situations I have to figure out on the fly and I don’t like making decisions about stuff and letting dice drive where I have any indecision. So for the bandit example, I would definitely roll to see what of a number of situations the bandits found themselves in.
Indeed!
Happy New Year, Daniel! I like to set up a large batch of NPCs, or "actors", within an adventure. I outline their wants and goals, what they hate, etc, but nothing to the extreme of "if x happens they do y". This helps me greatly when running my game as a lot of my play is procedural, but when NPCs show up or monster have interesting reaction rolls it let's me throw a few extra spanners into the works on the players. I'm definitely a "the procedure feeds the plot" kind of GM.
Awesome
Blending the two together seamlessly is an art
I personally find narratives to be easy for me and then whoops I forgot some procedure
I think soloing can help GMs to remember procedures so they become almost natural and therefore don’t interfere with the flow of the narrative
With that being said I use 3rd person speech for unimportant npc’s and 1st person for important ones
I also try to avoid overly descriptive details unless it’s something important so players don’t ask me twenty questions at every turn
Sort of like reading a pulp fiction novel
I don’t like it when players become complacent
I think there should be a certain amount mental pressure like taking an exam where snap decisions are necessary and quid pro quo is the staple
For sure
I don't go so far as 'soloing', but I do try to put myself into the situations. I might walk the streets of a city in my mind's eye. I might put myself in the shoes of NPCs to see how they act and react.
I suggest casting light on the nock of the arrow. I shot an arrow with light on the head of the arrow at an ogre, and it went so deep we couldn't see the light
Lol that’s amazing
I will follow procedure while running aspects of the game. For example, if they are crossing a desert then they will need to track resources and I use the game mechanics to check for heat exhaustion (assuming a hot desert), but I would never roll for the situations. I create the world and background by bringing together whatever influences are floating about in my mind. I might look at encounter tables for inspiration, but I wouldn't roll on them as I prefer to set the scene deliberately. Usually, I take a step back from a situation and try to determine how the various actors got there and what their motivations might be. A bandit camp should not be a group of faceless, nameless thugs. It's dispossessed farmers and poachers and drunks all on the run. Some might be brave, many will be terrified. If I know the backstory I know if they run, fight or talk.
Cool
Hey Daniel, Happy New Year! Really enjoy your videos brother. I've been play and DMing D&D since 1979. I really enjoy all the aspects of the game and adventures. Keep up the great work. Blessings
Thanks!
I feel like the procedure makes the narrative more interesting for me as a DM and more unexpected for both myself and my players. Procedure taken to an extreme is not something that I enjoy, as it encourages play that is video gamey (i.e.: taken to extremes you have players in 5E who would prefer to use the rest mechanic after every significant combat) but using procedure both to provide an actual proper game framework to work within and also to inject uncertainty are both things that I really enjoy; even simple things like the old reaction and morale checks: the dice sometimes lead the game in very interesting directions that narrative alone wouldn't have.
Makes sense
This is an excellent video. The procedural vs narrative are simple concepts but easy to forget or not realize how they complement each other at the table. You articulated this all very well and made me realize a few things i hadnt thought of before!
Thanks!
I tend to use the term "scenario" for what you seem to denote as "plot." I feel it is more neutral and tends to have less connotations that bring outcry in the OSR. "Plot" seems to suggest an arc of events going forward, while a "scenario" is rather neutral in that it is merely a set of circumstances and starting points laid out (with the implication of consequences according to the set of elements present), the stakes and the trappings of the game, which seems to be what you are going for.
Good point.
This. I create situations. I create NPCs that want to do things and then you drop the PCs in. The story is what emerges. The 'plot' is someone, after the event, describing the core elements of the story.
I'd like to hear and know more about procedural hex crawling and generation. I'm new at it and play a very simple but fun way for now. However I'd love to see and find more content covering the procedural methods
Great topic
Check out "How to Be a Hexchad" from, I think the channel is called GNC's DnD. Excellent explanation of how to run a hexcrawl.
Very good video. I definitely fall right in the middle between procedural and narrative. I like to use the procedural method to build out the map region by myself. Kind of a solo game for myself. I also love using procedural to see what unfolds. But all in all just want a fun and engaging story in the end.
For sure
Procedure is the riverbanks, Narrative is the flow of the river, if that makes sense to anyone else. Both are critical to a good game, the trick is the proper balance between the two.
I like that!
I would say I am very much on the narrative end of things, with almost no use for procedural techniques. Plot is indeed not a word I use, since it has too much of a connotation of things are determined already. Thus I prefer words like premise, theme, or scenario to make clear that I use only a framework but let the narrative unfold during play. And well, since I play more story games, even combat is usually more narrative than procedural for me. And my own game I am working is going to be playable solo, and still the procedural elements to facilitate that are much more bend to narrative purposes than to simulation as other games opt for.
Cool! Premise is a great word
This describes my approach too. I try to create an interesting world, with interesting things going on, that would unfold with or without the PCs. I try to do this at lots of levels, from the gods in conflict to a ferryman looking for his lost daughter. And then you wind it all up and drop in the PCs.
I'm still looking for the perfect system. Unfortunately, I like high-crunch, detailed chargen (GURPS or Hero), but don't enjoy running crunchy games.
Great video and Happy New Year! I have a lot of thoughts (Gods help you) on this topic. 😛
In my experience, a mix of both is the best way for me to run a game. The procedural aspect is the skeleton that the narrative puts the flesh on.
Donjon is a useful tool, though it isn't a fire and forget solution for everything so it needs to have the DM adding to or subtracting from what it gives you. I mostly use it as a random map generator when I just want to have something spur my imagination and a map is usually the easiest starter for my imagination that donjon can give me.
NPCs are a fun way of getting story ideas out there. I've had adventures written simply by seeing how the PCs interact with unconnected NPCs. I do a fair amount of creative freelancing since players will usually wander off following a shiny object that possibly only exists in their imagination and now I've got to create an adventure for that. 😀
And that's why I have to have a mix of both pillars. My procedural self will be in charge at the start and it will have half a dozen frameworks of adventures ready to go, and when the players decide which one they are ready to pursue my narrative side is there to add in the additional details to tie things together, to make connections that make them feel invested, and to make them feel in control of their own fun. Which, really, is why the game lasts.
Another procedural note: many people build a storyline and then work to get the players drawn into it and then (hopefully) they'll follow the given storyline to the end. For me, that's a procedure I've left behind. My procedure is an adventure web. Of the half a dozen aforementioned adventure concepts, each has its own story to follow and they're all somewhat different. I have my "rumor box", a small card box with four or five rumors (true or false) about each of the adventures so the party can choose which they want to follow. At the start of session one each player draws a rumor or two out and then they share and discuss what their characters have heard. Each adventure storyline will generally be self-contained but it may link to another storyline too, continuing to give the players the option of what they want to do.
Now the reason for the adventure setup being the framework instead of a complete adventure is for the players' choice. If they choose to hunt down the bandits and try to recover the captured goods for the monetary award to buy better gear and avoid the goblinoid caves which seem to be lighter on the reward side, that's fine. They complete the bandit adventure over a few sessions and follow the hints there to the power behind them and have some luck before they determine that they need to get better before they go further because attacking a bandit leader in his keep sounds unwise for a level 3 group. So how about those goblinoid caves now? That sounds more manageable than storming a guarded keep where the big bandit leader is. They are too strong for a small group of actual goblins, as my first level adventure originally had, so I'll change it so that the enemies are now some goblins but quite a few bugbears too. I can easily narratively attach that to the procedural framework and off they go to hack at some goblins and bugbears! After the goblinoids have been slain they explore the caves further and I decide that in a room they find a note that is from an "advisor" who has been coming to direct them in their activities. Someone was paying them to raid outlying farms and the local towns? Perhaps it is a clue that leads back to the bandit leader and can tie two separate adventures together in the adventure web! Or perhaps it leads off in another direction altogether. But just having frameworks ready to go means that I can more easily react to whatever wild hair inevitably possesses the players to change directions and chase a new lead. Thankfully after 40+ years of DMing I'm pretty good at not flinching and rolling along with them. 😀
It amuses me that one of my players keeps a "loose ends" list from adventures that the party wandered away from but they'll get back to at some point. It has around eighteen things on it last time I saw it. 😀
A love the loose ends list 😂 that’s a sign of an engaged player!
@@BanditsKeep I keep reminding him of that when I talk to him, and his list of "Party members to let die first" which would keep changing, sometimes between rounds of combat. 😀
I keep trying to get him to move back to town and to get his priorities in order: Gaming comes first through ninety-fourth, THEN he can start adding in real life stuff! But he keeps whining something irrelevant about only having a year (or so) until he finishes his biomedical engineering doctorate, the slacker. GAMING FIRST! 😀
I guess I think in terms of the ol' "right, left or straight ahead" in terms of decisions players can make, then "rooms" are the "beats", like "development", or "confrontation" and "revelation" wherein procedural elements relate to the narrative choices and these two elements, or pillars intersect/interact.
You chose the gnarled forest path which brought you to the oracle who wanted lunch. You went about the forest generating some semi-random results and then returned to the oracle with some marshmallows, a can of Coors and some cold cuts. The oracle says "I really wanted pizza" and kicks out a rando procedural of imps, or wild hogs or whatever is on your table of "disappointed oracle monsters" the players have to fight.
Yes, the players could have gone back to the "left-right-straight ahead" and gotten a pizza or calzone from town, but they had the open choice to cast about the wood too.
Idk... is that "both"? Sorta?
I love this oracle - may have to steal them
Happy 2023!!
I love your videos! I always watch one or two of them to get my mind in the game when GM prepping! Currently listening while I'm doing liquor ordering for my bar.
So with that i wanted to know, what is your audio set up?!?! Your sound is perfect and clear!
Happy New Year!
For some reason the Moebius art in the thumbnail reminds me of Rand Al Thor in the Aiel Waste.
😊
Should we include potential motivations and behaviours for monsters in their stat blocks?
I don’t see any disadvantage to that, but I would be more likely to include it in a random monster chart than in the main listing, motivations change
Found this video as it uploaded while binge buying random tables and procedural generation micro books.
Feels like serendipity
Nice!
More likely Google putting 2 and 2 together and giving you what you want.
@@davidmorgan6896 the searching and finding it within ten minutes of upload probably wasn't orchestrated by Google
I liked this very much. I totally agree with you, Daniel, I tend to keep myself in the middle between procedural and narrative balancing at will and based on the needs. I do montages when needed, I roll for outcomes when needed, actually to me it's players and common sense that make that need. The game should flow, being kept interesting and adventurous, players should perceive danger, risk as well as challenge and chances of success, and these are managed not by a binary choice between procedures and narrative, black or white, B/X or 5e. I play every edition with the same spirit by using the tools I'm offered with the same alchemy of abilities I developed in time. Even if the manual doesn't mention it, when I, the DM, decide that the elf has a 2 in 6 chance of finding an healing leaf in the woods I do not give Nature check any chance and go for a d6 check I do myself behind the screen because that's how I feel correct managing the thing: I decide the elf for sure would find it, but it doesn't depend by her if the leaf actually is around. To me procedural and narrative have always been one.
Thanks for sharing the links to resources below. I' m loving the S&S adventure creation tool!
Makes sense to me! I have to say that S&S generator is one of my favorites and it gets little love
Very good video, as always. I got into the hobby in the early 2000s as a young lad and have always played and ran more narrative based games. However, the past like 2 years or so I have fallen so much in love with the osr style that I am really trying to challenge myself and step outside of my comfort zone to run and enjoy games differently. One of those ways is using procedures established by many of the older editions.
Cool!
Ty Daniel and happy new year! I’m going to try to be more procedural this year
Excellent
Hi Daniel, happy new year, I hope everything went well! I believe that the narrative itself may have bits of procedures in it as well.
For example, in Matt Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming, he presents an idea called combat fu, that essentially says that is possible to negotiate different effects during a combat according to the conditions presented in the narrative.
Let's imagine a monster that has a strong carapace composed my scales and the fighter declares that his action would be hitting one of the scales in order to remove it and create a gap in the carapace, exposing the flesh.
This would require a better roll than a normal hit, but would result in a weak spot to be explored in the future, allowing them to cause more damage hitting that specific spot, for example.
Even though there are no rules being applied, I still see negotiations like the one I described above as a procedure, and they happen all the time during the game!
Sorry for casting a wall of text in the comments, but I'm really enjoy talking about this topic and got a bit excited hahahaha, keep up with the great work you've been doing man, bye!
Great point, I would call that narrative, but mostly I’d call it smart play and fun!
The procedural allows for wierd and anbalanced things to happen that otherwise if the DM plotted them it would come as cheep or unfair
Indeed
I don't have a narrative exactly for the megadungeon I'm making as we play but I have various factions vying for territory
Cool
Happy New Year! 🗓
🎉
Thank you Daniel, Happy New Year! Love the idea of a mix of the two myself!
Awesome
Procedures make sure you land the plane with certainty you put the wheels down. When there is a lot going on, like at the table during a session, that helps a DM avoid overload.
Procedures help the DM resolve high stakes situations in a way that is perceived as fair.
The randomness within the procedure, however, provides a DM the prompt necessary to depart from the current flow of events and create something new. Without the random elements, your narrative is subject to too much of your unconscious way of railroading the characters. With randomness, players and the DM can accept bad outcomes when it was the dice that did them wrong. With narrative alone, the DM that creates an unbalanced situation that kills a PC or creates a TPK is a lot harder for the players to swallow.
Indeed
I can't find any solo videos on the Bandit's Keep Actual play channel. Are they still being uploaded? Looking forward to checking them out!
They are making their way across the map! Should be live Friday
@@BanditsKeep I just saw it in my feed - hooray!
A lot of people tend to have an issue between “sandbox” and narrative. Which I go in between for the most part. Might start a game with a very railroad city siege situation. Whenever it’s resolved there will likely be a few sessions of whatever the party chooses to do. But oh no the evil wizard who ordered the siege a few months ago is up to even more nonsense and now you have to go take care of that
Fun!
Hi Daniel I had a procedural question. How come in OSE in the encounter procedure suprise is checked before monster distance? In B/X distance is checked first and then suprise,curious as to why its different and what are the benefits..
For wandering monsters surprise is check first in BX as the distance varies based on surprised/not surprised.
I'm about to run The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg procedurally. However, I'd rather stab myself in the eye with a frozen dog turd than go through the PC mapping process(let's turn a 4 hour day of adventure into an hour of adventure and 3 hours of cartography!!!) I turned each floor of the dungeon into a choose your own adventure style bullet point list. That way they encounter everything the dungeon has to offer but really only need to remember vague directions and number of turns traveled. I'm also going to use the 1 in 6 chance of getting lost each turn adjusted by the wisdom bonus of the lead character in marching order.
If that works for you, go for it. Having played part of the dungeon, I find mapping to be a fun challenge- I can’t say it slows down play for my group, but every group is different.
@@BanditsKeep I run mostly for adults over 40 that don't have a lot of experience playing. If I was like "you'll need to map not to get lost" I'd start losing players lol
Happy new years. Btw do you add reverb onto your videos when editing or are you a ghost? Heh, im not saying that its a bad thing, cause I like it
I’m a ghost 😂 likely the fact I’m in the corner of the room that causes that
I am 100% a procedural DM. My games are about exploration and very little about narrative.
Cool
Good analysis
Thank You!
Hey Daniel, thanks for the great content! The Random Sword and Sorcery Adventure Generator link os no longer working, do you have an updated link?
I quick google found this - not sure if it is an updated or an older version - but it looks to the the same - just different layout - www.hyperborea.tv/uploads/4/4/6/6/44662451/random_sword_and_sorcery_adventure_generator.pdf
Thanks!
Great video!
Thanks!
Hi Daniel I had a quick question. I was on your blog site and i saw you have a Calander with graph paper that you are writing your adventures on, do you have a link where I might purchase this? thank you
Here you go - amzn.to/3Jx7Hvb
@@BanditsKeep Thank you!!
What's that game you mention that you say was used in 1e for hexcrawl? Can't make it out
Outdoor Survival by Avalon Hill
Wow, you're running a solo game on your other channel? I would love to see that, I have been thinking about how to approach OSE solo, but I can never get going.
Is this on your actual play channel? What's the title of the video?
They will go live on Friday, I’ll link here
@@BanditsKeep hell yeah! I'm stoked on that for real!
@@BanditsKeepWonderful. I was going to ask about those too. Its helpful to see how others do solo rp.
I am a six sigma guy, I have improved the procedural to enhance the role-play. Published a book on the guild about it.
Cool
I am already watching this video the second time this year 😅
😊😊😊
Hi! Can you turn on the subtitles for this video, please?
Sorry about that, I thought they were on. Let me know if you can see them now
@@BanditsKeep Yes, now I can see them. Thanks Daniel!
Donjon is a great resource. Giving the players content (BBEG) to interact with is not railroading. Railroading is forcing them to solve a problem your way and only your way. Intentionally avoiding DM prepared material is being a bad player.
Making the bad guy is not railroading, setting it up so the players HAVE to fight them can be. Of course I am pretty much against the idea of BBEG in general so that is a factor 😊
The players should be free to do what they want. Not being able to cope with the sandbox - either through ludicrous prep or improv or both - is being a bad GM IM!HO 🤐
@@davidmorgan6896 - No. Running a sandbox game doesn't make you a good DM. The DM should run the game the way that they enjoy and the players should agree to play in that game. Not all games must be sandbox. The player has the responsibility to find the game they want to play in. My last sandbox game had a terrible DM.
@@sleepinggiant4062 I agree, though I didn't say the good GM should always run a sandbox. But, you must accept that they must be capable of running a sandbox. A 'good GM'. The ones you look at and think 'they're good'. Running a sandbox has to be part of a good GM's toolkit. That assertion doesn't speak to their preferences or the validity of other ways of running a game.
If you watched someone fumble because the players went off-piste would you still think they are good?
I don’t see this as a spectrum, but rather as orthogonal issues.
Consider the claim that a combat heavy ruleset is for combat focused games and the counter claim that a combat heavy system is for games focused on things other than combat. The original claim is the common one everyone knows, while few know of, and fewer ascribe to, the counter claim.
Similarly, procedural and narrative can each have mechanics, and I am on the counter normal side here, I prefer procedural mechanics because I don’t need mechanics for narrative, yet I play narrative games.
Indeed
Consider adding some illustrations or bullet points to your talks.
Why? And what do you believe this will help/add?
@@BanditsKeep As much as well all want to believe our voices and our wisdom are engaging and entertaining, they aren't; especially in a long-format style. If you had a podcast where you were interviewing someone, or had playful banter with a partner, then sure. In the world of teaching you want to engage your audience's eyes as well as their ears. Thanks for what you do. I am enjoying your channel.
@@roberticvs thanks for your comments - I disagree, flash does not make substance