The main issue is that the illusion of choice means that the players were not able to act with intelligence.

If the ogre is equally likely to appear behind either identical door, and it simply appears behind whichever door the players open first, it means that the players were denied an opportunity to make a decision based on anything other than blind luck.

It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's bad practice for a GM, and undermines player agency. Anytime a GM considers using a Quantum Ogre, they should instead rethink the structure of the scenario to figure out if there's a way to make the Ogre being Quantum unnecessary. It shouldn't really be all that difficult, and it's good for a DM to accept that the players may make decisions that do not lead to the ogre.

>>98184768
It pisses off nogames.

>>98184812
This post indicates the second group I forgot about:
It pisses off people who fail the sally anne test.

>>98184812
The counterargument I'd posit to that is that the quantum ogre is fundamentally very similar to how random encounters work.

Say for example the PCs are in town, ask around about monsters in the area, and hear that there have been goblins, orcs, and ogres nearby. They head down the road, and reach a fork. The GM rolls on his table of random encounters in order to decide on the fly what the party will run into on each path.
In this context, the players still don't have any agency. They don't really have a way to know what's on a road ahead, and not encountering an ogre is simply blind luck. Luck that the GM determines, because he's the one who made the table and therefore decided the odds of the ogre result.

A quantum ogre is never necessary, in the sense that you can replace it with a random encounter table and nothing changes from the player's perspective. The random encounter table is far superior, but any arguments about player agency apply to the table in the same way.

>>98184768
In theory or in practice? In theory, the main issue is that it's basically a variant on railroading, the idea that the decision making ability of the players is intentionally inhibited by the game master determining that they will be involved in a conflict whether or not they actually want to be involved in. In practice, the majority of players will rarely ever know for a fact if you are or aren't employing one unless they either steal your notes or you're that stiff an unyielding a game master, so quantum ogre acts more like an expression of dissatisfaction with their level of overall agency within the game.

Really, very few people have ever read the actual articles outlining what a quantum ogre is, so a lot of people misuse it to basically apply to any encounter that they didn't get the option of acquiescing to, rather than specifically when a GM outright twists the rules of the game or undercuts a player's actions to ensure that combat ensues. A quantum ogre situation isn't when there's a fork in the path and an ogre shows up when you take one of those paths. A quantum ogre situation when your party dutifully scouts both paths for signs of an enemy, find none at all, and nonetheless get an ogre fight sprung on them despite all their precaution.

>>98184768
He just doesn't have a very good attitude towards life, which slowly drives his friends away.

>>98184768
nothing.
the fundamental truth of GMing is that i only have one, MAYBE two battle maps ready to go. i only have a limited number of pre-balanced enemy encounters. i only have a limited number of NPCs and skill checks to throw around. it's simply not possible to improv everything, at the end of the day SOME content will be inevitable.

we can discuss removing all rails and quantum ogres and give you a truly open experience, but what do you want that to look like? roll tables are just ogres with extra steps, and arguably worse because the table wont adapt to your actions either, you're just getting raw RNG.
or, we can just end the game for the week whenever i run out of stuff to run you through, but then we're all just playing less game per game and im wasting hours a week prepping things you'll never see. if you like the work im doing, why intentionally create ways to avoid it?

the ogre is "bad" if it's used in a way that insults the player's intelligence. that's all it is though, a tool you can use or abuse

>>98184957
That isn't quite a Quantum Ogre situation.

A Quantum Ogre situation follows these steps:

1. GM decides on an encounter. (i.e. The Ogre)
2. GM presents two or more paths to a destination or destinations
3. No matter which path they take they encounter the same Ogre on the way to their destination.

In theory, random encounters work the following way:

1. PCs have multiple different paths. Lets say a Highway (longer path but multiple chances of weaker random encounters) and through a swamp (shorter travel time but higher rate of random encounters that tends to be stronger)
2. Players chose a path.
3a. Highway. GM rolls for highway random encounters likely multiple times. Encounter chart is weighted more towards things such as traveling merchants and half-orc bandits with maybe a small chance of an Ogre highwayman.
3b. Swamp. GM rolls for a swamp random encounter. Encounter chart is weighted towards things like lizardmen, willow-wisps and bog wraiths with a small chance of a black dragon encounter. Swamp Ogres might be on the chart.
4. Players encounter what was generated, but there should be differences in what is encountered.

The Quantum Ogre version of this is:
1. GM decides to have a Shrek encounter
2. GM gives the players the option to go along the highway or through the swamp to get to a destination.
3. Players make a choice.
4. Players encounter Shrek.

You're going to fight my DMNPC based on Kirito and you will like it.

>>98184768
well for one he ruined my clock

>>98184957
Random encounters tend to provide for more agency. If, for instance, the players decide they want to take an extra-large wagon which cuts their speed in half, they do so with the vague understanding that they have an increased risk of encountering an ogre because the DM will be rolling twice as often for each stretch of road. The players recognizing that the DM rolls based on hours spent traveling rather than something like distance traveled may directly influence how they decide to travel.

Random encounters are a bit more honest, and there's usually a way for players to form an understanding of them. Most games that use random encounters expect that the players have a fuzzy understanding of the underlying mechanics, ie. how often the DM is rolling and other clues, if not what the exact rolls are.

It really becomes a question of accumulated experience though. It may take many random encounter rolls for players to get a rough understanding of the mechanics behind the encounters if the DM is not willing to just let them see under the hood. And, the quantum ogre, just like any other form of fudging, is something players can suspect rather quickly

Players are suspicious of DMs. If they encounter six sets of two doors and always find an ogre behind whichever they pick first, they will likely know with high certainty that the DM is using Quantum ogres. But, even just two sets of two doors and getting the quantum ogre each time would be enough to raise suspicions. Hell, some people may be suspicious of just one set of doors, even if the ogre behind the door wasn't quantum.

The thing about only caring about immediate player perspective is that it's often too easy to underestimate players, and some DM's employ QO in ways that break the player's trust. The players should be able to trust that if the DM were to use a QO, they'd be doing it to improve the game, but it's a lot easier to just have them trust you're not using QO's by not using them.

>>98185071
>the fundamental truth of GMing is that i only have one, MAYBE two battle maps ready to go.

That is more a flaw of "modern" (i.e. started with 3e D&D) encounter and monster design. Encounters are not quick to generate, drop in and resolve like they were in 2e and earlier.

To generate an Orc army in pre-3e D&D, you rolled 3d10 and multiplied the total by 10. For every 30 orcs rolled 4 of them would have max hp (8), for every 100 a Shaman (1d10/2 for level) or Witch Doctor (1d4 for level) and every 150 a subchief and guards with 11 hp and better AC to hit and damage. This could all be done in less than 15 minutes with a little practice.

>>98185160
Not that anon but given you could be facing 300 Orcs, I'm guessing you were able to kill in larger numbers than is currently doable as a standard?

>>98185160
first off, your ideas are repulsive to me.

having a limited number of maps is just a fundamental limit of using maps in the first place. you can make the maps shittier and less intentional so you can spam out more in less time, but you still only NEED one, so doing that degrades the actual played experience for no gain. no system will make painting faster or slower.

as for orcs generated from a template, yeah sure i can do that. i can do that in my brain too and just assign a number of elites per grunt, i dont need any help to do that and having it pre-written doesnt make it any faster than any other system with any other monster manual. honestly im not even sure how that would take 15 minutes, it seems like you're just rolling 3D10 then swapping in a couple. which really raises a question, why would i ever want a variance between 30 and 300? the encounter balance is completely and totally fucked, im not even sure when i would WANT to use this tool.

>>98185089
Don't be a dick, that wouldn't have happened if you didn't observe him.

>>98185223
Or you could game without a map, and not have this insane arbitrary limitation put upon yourself.

>>98185073
>In theory, random encounters work the following way:
Yes, in theory, the GM can decide to make different encounter rates and different encounter tables for the two different paths in an effort to make them more distinct.

If the GM doesn't do that though, checks at the same rate regardless of path, and just uses two largely similar encounter tables except the highway has bandits and the swamp has goblins, he hasn't denied player agency. Or rather, the players are still basically just making their decisions off of blind luck, because they don't know the odds of the encounter table well enough to factor it into their choice.

Again, it's obviously better if the GM spices things up more, but it doesn't really work to say 100% chance of ogre is bad, but 95% chance of ogre is fine because that's just what the table generated.

>>98185115
>The players recognizing that the DM rolls based on hours spent traveling rather than something like distance traveled may directly influence how they decide to travel.
It influences how they might choose to travel, but deciding which road to take is still just a blind guess. If the party bought horses instead of a wagon, they might easily be able to outrun an ogre if they encounter one, but the horses don't change what the GM already put on the encounter table.

To add to this, if instead of random encounters or quantum ogres, the GM puts an ogre on one path and a band of orcs on the other, would that be more or less agency? The party's choice of a wagon now doesn't have any impact on how many monsters they encounter, just as it wouldn't in the quantum ogre scenario. The choice at the fork is still a blind guess, even if now there's a 100% chance that there's a different monster on either road.

Player agency just feels like the wrong supporting argument here. Your point about honesty is the stronger one, since the GM can honestly tell the players that the two paths were different, even if they had no way of knowing.

>>98185160
That depends on the edition and general game experience I'd say. For high level 3.5 I'd say yeah you can't really plan out many encounters that can reasonably challenge a party due to the power level you need but like for 5th edition building a decent encounter is easy as piss and often just involves drawing out the vague idea of the surroundings and throwing up some monsters you know are challenge appropriate and area logical.
Its more a fault of modern dms feeling like every encounter needs to be a big life or death deal and not just like a road bump or something you can solve by thinking logically in a clean manner. If you're building a dungeon most encounters should be shit like Jerbin the pissing goblin, or this room happens to have 5 drow playing strip poker for this mistress's amusement or 3 cultists practicing a ritual in a room. Most modern DMs need to add more random shit that adds texture, that texture is a big part of what makes dungeons interesting. Quantum Orges are a symptom of the death of dungeon design where modern dungeons are mostly designed as hallways with fights placed at intervals the DM intends.

>>98185248
He could, but it's nicer to have the map. I think that's that anon's point: you can make shit up off the cuff, but in most cases it's going to be a lot less enjoyable for players than the stuff you've preplanned.

>>98185248
Yes, but there are many artistic and practical reasons to want a map, and some VTTs require it. Plus, a map has gravity. The more nebulous and incorporeal your game is the more it becomes just pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet.

>>98185273
I think that's a symptom of how modern D&D encounters can end up really drawn out. When some groups are taking 30 minutes to beat a handful of zombies, I can't really blame a DM for thinking that time could be better spent on something more curated.

>>98185294
I would much rather have no map than be railroaded into the GMs super special """encounters"""".

>>98185257
You're inventing a stupid way for the GM to use random encounters to somehow try to make quantum orges good. Quantum Orges are bad. The GM using contextless random encounters would also be fucking bad.

>>98185180
Yes. Orcs were 1 HD (1~8 hp with 4.5 average) monsters and warriors had a rule that let them do 1 attack per level against 1 HD enemies and AoE spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt were heavily used.

>>98185257
>If the GM doesn't do that though, checks at the same rate regardless of path, and just uses two largely similar encounter tables except the highway has bandits and the swamp has goblins,

That is more on GM laziness and poor use of the system rather than an actual flaw with the system.

>>98185273
Enemies are also a lot chunkier in more modern editions. The 5e Orc has 15 hp with AC 13 while the pre-3e Orc had 4.5 with the equivalent of AC 15. In second edition the average Longsword hit from anyone would down an orc while in 5e the blow of a greatsword from a high Strength fighter might not down one without luck.

>>98185332
I blame that on 3e giving pretty much everything Con to hp and more and larger HD.

>>98185257
>To add to this, if instead of random encounters or quantum ogres, the GM puts an ogre on one path and a band of orcs on the other, would that be more or less agency? The party's choice of a wagon now doesn't have any impact on how many monsters they encounter, just as it wouldn't in the quantum ogre scenario. The choice at the fork is still a blind guess, even if now there's a 100% chance that there's a different monster on either road.

That's not good design.
Blind guesses where the players can just flip a coin are not true decisions, and are little more than the illusion of choice, rather than an actual decision.

They're not the worst thing in the world. Gambling can be fun, and players just picking a road and dealing with the consequences is not just a natural part of a game, it's a natural part of life. But, they're not good design, and it's always good practice to try and add some weight to the player's options, so that they can feel informed and have some measure of control, even if it's far from total.

Players being told one road has an ogre and the other has orcs? Total control over the decision, which actually might be a bit too much.
Players learn the north road has a 70% chance of ogre and 30% chance of orcs, and the south has a 70% chance of orcs and a 30% chance of ogre? They can choose which side to gamble on, without having total control of what they encounter.
Players learning the north road is by a swamp and the south has shown signs of lots of odd, deep-booted tracks? The players can use their wits to guess which path they'd prefer.
Players are dead blind to what's on the roads and just have to pick? No real control, and if the players have to make too many decisions like this, they can grow frustrated or bored.

>>98185332
It really depends, weirdly enough me and my friends probably take less time on random minor encounters playing 5e than we do playing older editions since the contract/expectations of play for said older editions builds combat to be swingier and death to have larger consequences while in 5e you can typically judge an encounter by its cover with the largest concern being resource consumption over the course of all combat you predict happening before your next long rest. The big problem with 5e players is that due to the big all in combats being seeing as a normal expectation players are hopelessly afraid of spending resources on fights and DM's aren't willing to fast forward solved fights, something like a dozen zombies in a room is a minor hick up for any party and should basically just be handled like this.

Alright the party rogue has successfully peeked into the next room they're at least a dozen basic zombies in there the cult must be using that room to hold their undead when they don't need them.
The party Cleric/Paladin/buffer casts Divine Shield/Sanctuary/other defensive buff on the dude with the Highest AC
The bulky guy will stand in the door and dodge focusing on holding the undead off while everyone else attacks with ranged attacks
Alright DM can we just call this encounter solved we've got someone the zombies have a sub 1% chance of hurting and a bunch of people with ranged attacks.
Alright sure you each get 200 XP for the encounter as you destroy the zombies while Jorb the Mighter and his 3-foot chin keep all the zombies from ever hurting you.

That full exchange in under 5 minutes is what an encounter with a dozen zombies should really be for any party that's not garbage.

>>98185353
If you're scripting two full sets of tables with 5 entries on it at every major intersection and never recycling encounters or tables you're intentionally wasting about 90% of your prep time
If you are recycling encounters and/or tables then its the quantum ogre again, just rolling for what order you get the scripted events in

>>98184768
turns the game into storytelling slop where the players are just listning to the GM telling a story and sometimes rolling dice (which doesn't matter since the story will continue regardless of result). Simply put it's not roleplaying.

>>98185363
Orcs were also significantly chumpier in 2nd edition too which is a big part of it.
Getting from level 1 to level 2 in 2nd edition would take over 100 orcs for most classes since each gives 15 XP while in 5th edition it takes 3 since each orc is worth 100 XP.

It's not bad, it's just lazy.
It was latched on to as a skub argument.

>>98185485
>It's not bad, it's just lazy.
its not lazy, its efficient
you can bust out your ogre whenever you feel its necessary

Here's some questions for what you see as a Quantum Ogre.
When the party is traveling say they reach a point where their next encounter will always be in the same encounter zone does that next encounter become a Quantum Ogre?
If the party being pursued by assassins that will attack them wherever they stay in town a Quantum Ogre?
Is a cursed magic item that summons a monster the party must fight next time they fight summoning a Quantum Ogre?

I thought the quantum ogre meant something else. Could someone remind me what the name of the following is, if it's not quantum ogre?
In some systems with more player narrative power, the act of looking for enemies and succeeding on your scout check means you found the enemy. That doesn't mean there had to be an enemy planned (either by fiat or table), the players created the enemy by looking for it and succeeding. The moment you look for it, there's an ogre, if you never look for it it's not there.
It fits with the quantum analogy, but is there a separate term for it?

>>98185353
I already said as much. But it isn't bad because of player agency, it's bad because there are more fun and interesting ways to run a game.
>>98185363
>That is more on GM laziness and poor use of the system rather than an actual flaw with the system.
Sure. But that was to illustrate a GM being lazy with random tables isn't magically better than a quantum ogre just because he used a table.

>>98185397
>Blind guesses where the players can just flip a coin are not true decisions, and are little more than the illusion of choice, rather than an actual decision.
Exactly my point. The players don't have agency when it comes to a blind choice at a fork in the road. Therefore, it's silly to argue that the problem with the same monster being on both paths of a fork is due to player agency.

And as I already said, doing proper random encounter tables is far superior. I just don't find player agency to be a compelling argument as to why.

so how many threads have we had arguing about the same damn thing and why do they stay up for so long?

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>>98185505
every single one of these threads have all felt like purely academic discussions
purely theoretical "sure you are having fun now, but think of all the greater fun you could have if you listen to me"

>>98184812
Magic doors

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>>98185499
I dunno, the crocodile crocodile?

>>98184768
For the players? Nothing really. They will never find out that the encounter was a quantum ogre encounter. They can't load a save and choose door number 2 this time.
But for the GM it is a bad practice born out of confusion.
So you are the GM and you made this cool Ogre encounter. You don't want to put the encounter in the critical path, for whatever reason and thus you have made the encounter essentially optional, if not hidden. But you spend time and thought in order to make this encounter and you really really want the players to find it, because if they don't why did you even bother? So the first time you can't shoehorn the ogre in their way you do that but you still pretend that the encounter was totally optional and organic you guys you just chose to take the westward path and then I rolled for wandering monsters in that area and then I checked the Ogres schedule at the time of the day and yep here he is returning from his morning dump.
Alternatively if you made an encounter you really want your players to engage with you can either plain put it in the critical path, there is literally nothing wrong with that, or you make sure to leave hints that here there be ogres with fat chests full of booty. The illusion of choice the Quantum Ogre gives the players is actually worthless. Players don't care. You are just debasing yourself. Either drop the Ogre in front of them and go "Here's an Ogre, do your thang" or just give them a choice by saying the "critical path is this way but that way is a really cool Ogre Encounter" and if they choose to not engage with it pocket the encounter and drop it in their critical path somewhere else down the line with less loot; that will show them for avoiding your pretty sweet encounters.

>>98184768
As long as the players don't suspect it, quantum ogres are fine to use. But if you slip up the magic will be lost and your players will accuse you of metagaming (or atleast not be as invested in their choices if they're less confrontational)

>>98185715
>But if you slip up the magic will be lost and your players will accuse you of metagaming
in my experience, players never do that
at most they just say something like "that encounter was always going to happen, wasnt it?" but it doesnt change their opinion strongly

>>98185715
The GM always metagames.

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>>98184768

>>98184957
You have zero clue how random encounters are supposed to work. They arent lolrandumb events to fill out time because your lazy dm didn't prepare.
They exist so that meaningful in-game decisions can be made.
>>98185073 gets it

>>98185715
I think >>98185658 hit the nail on the head.
There's not really a reason to give the players the illusion of choice just so you can give them a monster to fight. You can just give them a quest to fight the monster, or put it in a chokepoint, and then give them actual choices elsewhere.

>>98185063
Kek, maybe he should try quantum therapy

>>98185764
>They exist so that meaningful in-game decisions can be made.
do they though? short of using OOC knowledge to bail out when the deck gets stacked, what actual control do players have over the outcome of a roll on a table?
if you mean the frequency and incidence of encounters is semirandom then that isnt in conflict with the ogre in the first place. you can do both at once

>>98185822
Players should be able to control:
* Their understanding of table contents by getting information about regions
* Their choice of routes, affecting which table is rolled on
* Potentially traveling a way that tilts the rolls or puts them in a better position should the unwanted result get rolled (if we see cavalry tracks we form square and wait for X time to avoid them)
If the situation is genuinely such that the only way to a destination involves X random rolls on a single table then that may not technically be a quantum ogre but it's still fucking boring design.

>>98184957
>>98185073
You're both very close, what makes the quantum ogre is not that there's an encounter with an ogre, but the same encounter, with the same circumstances, no matter what way the players go. If the ogre the DM has prepared is sitting behind a makeshift palisade with a collection of crude javelins to throw at the party, and if they get close he has a pot of fermented piss to throw at them, then no matter which way they go the palisade will be there, so will the javelins, and the piss. If the players see this setup and go a different way, and encounter an ogre without these things, then it's not a quantum ogre, just another ogre.

>>98185273
I have a DM friend who I have to constantly remind that not every encounter has to be on level. Underpowered encounters exist to drain resources and force the weighing of options in the long run. They keep forgetting this though, and almost tpk his players every other combat.

>>98185906
Sell him a 2d20 system. Preferably Conan. Underpowererd encounters or even just rolling skill rolls generate Doom points that the GM can then spend in the final boss fight to just easily steam roll the players without them being able to piss and moan about unfairness because hey, the doom pool was visible to everyone from the start,
It's the same thing as slowly draining your players resources in D&D then dropping them in a level appropriate challenge that they can no longer deal with. It's just clearer and easier to understand.

>>98185851
Which is why I called the Ogre in my Quantum Ogre encounter "Shrek" in order to get across the idea that no matter which way they went they would encounter the same unique ogre. I guess I didn't quite get that idea across.

>>98185750
You got us all! Great work!

it's fine, players only need the illusion of agency over the story. they make meaningful decisions in combat and social encounters, but I make the world they travel in. so long as there are no asspulls.
if there's supposed to be a party at one location and they decide to scout out a different location, that's one thing. but the same basement/sewer occultist encounter can happen wherever.

>>98185505
>But it isn't bad because of player agency, it's bad because there are more fun and interesting ways to run a game.
The two things are interrelated. When I run games, I want to put the PCs in situations where they surprise me. I don't want to read my novel to them with extra steps. Player agency is directly related to *my* enjoyment of the game as the GM.

>>98185412
Yet again, you don't know what a quantum orge is. You're talking about a completely different thing.

>>98186428
He is likely obsessed with proving that randomly generated encounters are a form of quantum ogre likely because he actually uses plain quantum ogres unrepentantly. It is a form rationalization usually done in order to justify using the bad thing rather than actually understanding why a thing is bad.

>What is wrong with lying to your friends?

What is that draws sociopaths to a hobby that's all about being social and using your imagination to cooperate in a non competitive game with no stakes?

>>98184957
A random encounter isn't a player decision.
Choosing which door to open is.
If you don't want them to make decisions, don't invite them to the game.

>>98185071
maps? pre balanced encounters? what are you talking about?

>>98185838
So then in that case for every defined locale (which if you're rolling encounters per travel time is likely between overland travel hexes) you're scripting at minimum two different routes, with each route posessing it's own unique table, and each table posessing at least what, four pre-balanced encounters? So thats 20 encounters per hex, multiplied by this many hexes...

I dont think thats a reasonable workload to expect of your gm, especially when 95% of it (19 out of the 20) is intended to never be encountered by the players. In fact, i dont think anyone has ever actually done it this way on account of how inefficient and impractical it would be. Maybe you had something different in mind, but this seems like the kind of system someone makes when they start with a value statement about how gaming SHOULD be, then try to work down to rules implementations rather than starting with what works and building the best possible experience within those practical constraints

>>98186428
This is the first time you've replied to me about this. That said, ive seen you insisting on a hyperspecific definition itt but this is the first time ive seen anyone do that in over a decade. Can you link to any of these original articles that include your definition? Id be interested to see the foundations of the concept

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>>98186680
Forgot my overland travel hexmap

>>98186673
Heres your (you)

Please help us, brave adventurers. Our town has been under constant attack by quantum ogres that pop in and out of existence! Everything is fine until we observe their destruction, which has simultaneously happened and not happened at the same time!

>>98185273
Why does your game become impossible to play at high level, instead of not doing that?

>>98185294
No, not at all.
>>98185321
holy shit the irony LOL

>>98186698
Sorry, all we can do is avoid the town. This way you can stay in a simultaneously destroyed and undestroyed state without any outside observers to collapse the waveform

>>98185363
It's also a result of simply bad rules and bad core mechanics. In d&d, a fireball vs a group of twelve zombies causes twelve defense rolls. In a good game, it causes one.

>>98185515
Yes. Roleplaying games and their design are wholly theoretical.

>>98186680
>>98186696
I see only 5/6 random encounter tables really needed for that area. Coast/Ocean, Forest, Plains/Road, Hills/Mountains and maybe River. If the campaign is going to stay in that area for an extended period of time spending the time to make those tables would be a good use of GM time.

>>98185658
For the players? Plenty, clearly.

>>98186680
Thank you for your condescension.
"Region" in this context would be something like "biome" or the like. A contiguous space of multiple hexes. Many routes being implied in the existence of a hexmap. If the destination is in the middle of a region such that they must roll on a single table I'll try and pay attention to other ways the PCs can tilt the odds to try and encounter or avoid certain things.
Frankly nowadays I'm more likely to do a pointcrawl with multiple routes and split the encounters out that way, which i don't feel is unreasonable. Equally I no longer play systems where the GM work is boring and laborious.

>>98185822
Yes. They do.

>>98185906
Which never works because they'll just rest after every fight, obviously.

>>98186280
Wrong.

>>98186730
A smart DM would knows that a no 1 HD (4.5 hp) skeleton is surviving a 5d6 (17.5 damage average) minimum fireball so wouldn't even need to roll. He might not even roll for 2 HD (9 hp average 16 max) enemies.

>>98186696
Grim.

>>98186762
Of course, we're discussing the rules in the book, not an imaginary DM who just happens to behave in such a way as to make the system look better than it actually is.

You also fixated on the specific example instead of actually trying to understand the point or participate in the discussion. It doesn't matter if it's fireball and zombies or lightning bolt and a bunch of wyverns. D&D is bad, so its attack resolution has O(n) scaling. Good games have O(1) scaling.

>>98184768
Some people really like lying to themselves about how cool they are.
Other people find it irritating to see or know about.
If there were a way to clarify this beforehand it wold be easy for the differing groups to sort that out before it takes place in a game they don't want to be in.
Unfortunate the delusional side of it requires the delusional part so can't really go around saying
>This game will only have the appearance of challenge, don't worry it will all work out because I will make sure it always works out for your brave adventures!

>>98186680
It is incredibly easy to use Google and find the original definition. If you don't know what a thing means, maybe you should take part in a conversation about the thing until you've done some homework and have half an idea of what you're talking about. It makes you sound incredibly ignorant.

>>98186838
*shouldn't take part in a conversation fuckin' stupid fingers.

>>98186733
So if we're doing tables per route we need at minimum transitions for coast/forest, coast/plains, forest/plains, forest/hills and plains/hills
Thats two routes per transition, so two tables (min 4 entries), so 24 preppanned random encounters with weighting factors? Thats still a lot of planning for content that will likely be avoided, especially if you expect at least 16 battlemaps to accomodate them. Maybe you make four half-maps and stitch them together down the middle though. I could see that being at least humanly possible to do, maybe even worth it if you're publishing the game or expect to run it multiple times with multiple groups or see it as a worldbuilding project.

That said, there is somewhat of a problem in that this map is a hexgrid overlayed over the travel map for phandelver. There is already a series of expected pre-planned encounters designed to give exactly enough exp to get the players from level 1 to 5. If the region is full of farmable roaming terrors it messes up the exp gain and overloads the ammount of info NPCs have to hand out, which is already a lot considering nearly all of them point to the critical path and at least one side objective or alternate route. Which itself conflicts with the spirit of the random encounters, since the alternate routes are baked into phandelver at every step. The informed and concequential choices you want are just baked in through good encounter design without needing to pregen 20+ fights from a template. Its why ive been critiqueing the concept this whole time as inefficient, its just better for everyone to have one single mechanically and strategically deep encounter you always play than 20+ shallow ones you mostly avoid

>>98186747
As above, except that i'd add that im curious what you consider to be non-laborious about that process compared to the alternative, or if you mean you dont play systems that require either

>>98186793
Nope. O(1) scaling is only important if resolution is not quick. 3.X and onwards are bad because they are O(n) due to monster complexity. 2e and earlier editions of D&D have much simpler and faster resolution due to the simpler monsters. All monsters used the exact same save charts and there were lots of little tricks used to quickly resolve even massive battles. Being O(n) doesn't make D&D bad, it made the WotC editions bad because the designers were idiots.

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>>98186838
>the original articles agree with me
>okay can you link the specific ones you're talking about
>no you have go go and find supporting evidence for my argument for me
Hmm. Seems like you're just well-poisoning for attention. Opinion discarded.

>>98186849
>So if we're doing tables per route we need at minimum transitions for coast/forest, coast/plains, forest/plains, forest/hills and plains/hills

No need for transition charts. Only need charts for the terrain moved onto. If anything you would just flip a coin to figure which chart to use if you couldn't tell which of the two terrains it was.

>>98186849
No.
Let's say you have a coast table, a forest table, a plains table and a hills table. Then six or eight entries for each (creature, number appearing, maybe a sub roll for camping Vs marching or something). You roll on the table you're moving into each time. The players can look at a hexmap and plan their route thinking "well this route avoids the coast where those ogres we dislike are"
Further, you may allow for discoveries that weight the table (roll twice take lower) or change the odds of encountering anything, etc.
Battlemaps are a cancer and the GM should move to sketchmaps or (my preference) zonal maps ASAP.

>>98186867
No, it always matters, by your own reasoning. If fast resolution is good, then O(1) is better.

>>98186887
O(1) is only better if the resolution is already pretty fast. If an O(n) system takes 15 minutes to resolve a low entity fight and 45 minutes to resolve a high entity fight it is better than an O(1) system that takes 1 hour to resolve a fight no matter the number of entities, then the O(n) system is better even if the complexity scales.

>>98184768
... the what now?

>>98186973
Lurk and or google

>>98186880
Thats still 16 encounters you need to plan though.

>>98186883
If you push it up to eight per zone then you still have 24 encounters to write so its exactly the same ammount of prepwork as having multiple smaller route-based charts, just with less variety, information and agency, which you told me is the entire point of using these techniques. As for the ogres, they're an encounter on a table. How do they players know they dont like them unless you're allowing duplicate rerolls of encounters they've seen before?

More importantly, if im only tracking eight enemy groups per zone, why not... just track them? I can have them be persistent characters in their own right and actually move according to their interests, which really just cycles us back to not using a roll-table at all and creating a single giant region-sized curated super-encounter. It seems to me that even the best possible implementation of tables is ultimately to remove the tables

As for sketchmaps i cant find any trace of the term. Zonal maps ive used though, and they suck. You want your choices to matter but the actual fight autoresolves in an abstracted void? Where are the terrain and maneuvering advantages? Where do you lay traps or define prepared positions? You're fucking around creating literally dozens of combat encounters only for the actual combat to be completely trivialized. What's the point of any of it?

>>98187072
>Thats still 16 encounters you need to plan though.

Only if you are going with post-3e CR based encounter design. One thing you don't seem to get is that the tactical complexity that necessitates pre-built/pre-planned encounters only really started with 3e D&D. Before then editions lack the complexity that required preplanned encounters.

>>98186760
Why? And don't just say "read the thread", I want a response to my specific statement.

>>98187072
None of the previous anons. Its kind of wild how close you are to realizing the entire mode of play you are fixated on is trash, but can't quite get there.
WotC era DnD, or anything with that tightly scripted combat encounters needs quantum ogres to function, but both of those things are shit gameplay.

>>98187072
You are definitely trolling me at this point, but I'm bored at work so I'm just going to roll with it.
First off: OF COURSE I'm going to have duplicate encounters. Here's an encounter example:
>1d4 Orcs (MM page whatever), looking for an easy mark to rob
The area that result is in is inundated with orcish footpads. If you meet anyone on the road, one time in six it's orc criminals.
I'm not tracking individuals around an area the size of New Hampshire: there are dozens of orcs in the area.
Sketch maps are maps that you sketch. I don't need to have a library of faggy isometric artworks and slowly lose my mind trying to keep up with player demand. Big grid, here's some trees, the road is here, these bits are rough terrain. Done in sixty seconds or less on a dry erase mat.
As for zonal maps, you may be under a misconception. It's easiest to think of zones as 30ft "squares" with some blobbiness to them, and a few supplementary rules about AoE and what being engaged in melee (or bodyguarding) means. It completely eliminated square counting and makes battlemaps even faster because I just have to label 2-6 index cards and lay them out to put standees on. Movement is still important, positioning is still important, but it's fast and easy.

>>98187152
Read the thread, and don't EVER tell me what to do. I don't give a fuck what you want. You'll take my shit in your mouth and thank me.

>>98186970
No, it's better regardless, sorry.

>>98187186
Why?

>>98187152
ntayrt
If you need an explanation about why building your game around the illusion of agency there's a good series you can read to get into it. I don't think you'll read them but having a similar basis for discussion helps.
The most likely outcome is you run a very different sort of game (if one is charitable enough to pretend that's a thing you do), shrug and move on. But just in case, start here
https://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-how-illusion-can-rob-your-game-of.html

There's about 4 of them, they're short. He's a bit exaggerated in an old internet hyperbole kind of way. You probably don't need to dig back to the alexandrian articles but the Lichhouse post is good.
>it is 2011 and the comments sections are actually for good discussion
fuck. Its been a minute since that.

As explained earlier. Try reading the thread if you're still confused.

>>98187158
That has nothing to do with Wotc or tsr dnd but dogshit adventure designers who think quantum ogres are required ever

>>98187149
No, so long as a creature has a HP bar and a damage number it has a combat power. The only way that stops being a balancing factor in encounter design is if you willfully ignore it. Dont be retarded

>>98187158
(You)

>>98187172
>OF COURSE I'm going to have duplicate encounters
Then we come back to recycling canned encounters like we're farming zubats in the tall grass, and just like that we have less agency because we can never wipe out the zubats, and we get some absurd videogamesque situation where the population is 80% bandits that we can easily avoid by just not mechanically following a rigid and simplistic system like this. And what's even the point? To repeat the same encounter pool 20+ times until you recoup the time investment spent making them? Why do this at all?? For the effort spent you really could just write two standard-model ogres, burn half of them when they get avoided and still get a better game experience out of it

>Sketch maps are maps that you sketch. Done in sixty seconds or less on a dry erase mat.
Okay. I dislike that there's no thought or intention behind that, seems like less space for player expression that way
>As for zonal maps, you may be under a misconception. It's easiest to think of zones as 30ft "squares" with some blobbiness to them, and a few supplementary rules about AoE and what being engaged in melee (or bodyguarding) means.
My bad, i thought you were referring to a system of "in melee/not in melee" range bands that OVA uses. This is still bad though. Counting squares takes seconds to do and you've sacrificed all the depth of reach weapons, avoiding zones of control or opportunity attacks, spacing to avoid lines/cones, choke points and terrain, specific trapped squares, manuvering around LOS-blocking features, small differences in movement speed... you've destroyed 80% of the tactical complexity of the combat system.

Maybe its just a matter of taste but to me this is insanity

>>98187317
WotC era D&D kind of pushes adventure design that way with mechanics such as CR and game balancing around that. In 3e the classic common 1d4 Orcs encounter could be anywhere between a CR of 1/2 (1 Orc Warrior) and a CR 4 (an Orc Rogue, Barbarian, Cleric and Sorcerer) which require different amounts of planning to pull of compared to knowing Orcs have 1~8 Hp, AC 6 and deal 1d6 damage with weapons.

>>98187391
Why do you think there's no intention involved? Have you tried it?

>>98187391
No, my system has rules for reach, traps, line of sight, cover, etc without requiring a grid, or maps of any kind.

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>>98187391
Anon you should always manage the population of the area. Monsters are not some mindless NPCs that stays in T-pose whenever the party isn't in their line of sight. If your party kills the 1d4 orc bandits who used to stalk the passer-by on the road to the forest then maybe the group of ogres (that is in the same table/region or even in the nearby table/region) will take up the road, or maybe a group of random lowly goblins will thank the party because now they are allowed to roam the area (and prey upon the peasants). You should run a simulation of a world that is alive and thriving and if you don't wanna do that maybe you should just play a boardgame

>>98187391
>Maybe it's just a matter of taste but to me this is insanity
Well if you keep misrepresenting what I'm saying and taking the most retarded possible meaning, I guess it would be.

>>98187500
No.

>>98186767
*Sovl

>>98187317
>the edition that hammered in encounter balance with challenge ratings and statblock bloat has nothing to do with the requirement for quantum ogres
lol okay

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>>98187511

>>98187215
i'll read it. thanks anon

>>98187178 (yuo)
OK

>>98187514
It doesn’t, retard. Nothing fucking sucks more as a player than dogshit dms who are afraid of putting the players against stronger foes and weaker chumps.

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>>98187451
>>98187465
>>98187501
I clocked you the last few times, why do you think making the same reply three times in a row to the same post will somehow make me LESS likely to spot the bait im already avoiding?

>>98187500
But now you're just back to tracking specific individual groups as they move through the area like i fucking said you should, which still defeats the point of rolling on the table because you're simulating them anyway

>>98187547
... how do you think they got this fear or learned behaviour entirely separately from an edition based on balanced encounter design and the time it takes to do this?

>>98187178
That's a pretty cringe fetish, anon. Maybe fuckity fuck off to /d/?

I'm trying to write fancy for you guys and my brain just isn't there, so instead of forcing it I'm going to say what I wanted to say.

The Quantum Ogre represents unavoidable outcomes. This might feel like an "epic cheat code" for GMs (just make the Ogre behind every door) but you're denying yourself the richness of what TTRPGs were always meant to be; GMs and Players competing with each other and, through that competition, produce a collaborative story.

The greatest TTRPG story I've ever read - in fact, the first one I've ever read on /tg/ - was "Tales of an Industrious Rogue." The story involved the PCs discovering a stable portal to the demiplane of salt in a dungeon and, rather than chalk it up as an anomalous feature of extraplanar instability, decide to dump whatever grand narrative the GM was deciding and set up shop in that dungeon to harvest the salt. This dovetailed into it's own grand narrative of the party opening trade routes, dealing with rival companies, and operating new industries for more money.

The GM could have forced them back on the route. They could've forced a Quantum Ogre coming through the portal, but they chose to follow what the Players wanted and, in return, made a far richer narrative because of it. I'll make another post on this, but my dad's yelling at me to weed whack and I'm over here for a reason.

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>>98187551
Sorry, anon. Different people.

>>98187577
As a counterpoint, and ignoring the absurdity of using tg storytimes as anecdotal evidence, but one of the greatest stories I've read was that one where the GM actually employed the quantum ogre and had the lichen enact his evil plot, while the players pissed around trying to legalize gay marriage.

>>98187556
Idk, the most popular adventure for Wotc dnd has random encounters and prebuilt encounters that are both stronger and weaker than the players.

Must be a dm skill issue

>>98187592
Wait, I'm a retard, I'm confusing simulating the world in the background with quantum ogres (in that story, the players' choices actually mattered)

>>98185073
So.... here's the ten thousand dollar question: why do the players ever even know about the ogre ahead of time?

As a DM I want to believe in my own game world. To achieve that goal I need to place enough stuff in it to not need Quantum Ogre or Shrek as anon put it. There's only one Shrek and if the player's choose not to go to a swamp, they will never meet him.

>>98187615
Because they’re engaged with the world and have been given information that’ll lead them to believe that there’s an ogre in the swamp so they choose the path with least ogres

Mostly it’s because the players have been given information to make a choice about their path they can pursue and can weight pros and cons of each path. The ogre showing up in both paths indicates they never really had a choice at avoiding the ogre

>>98187602
>balance over a series of encounters
God you're dumb.

>>98187592
That wasn’t a story, that was a five sentence zinger. ToaIR was a multi-thread, multi-max character post AAR on what was very obviously somebody’s campaign.

And I know it’s real because the same thing has just happened in my campaign; the PCs found prospector equipment (including a charter allowing them to prospect in the area) in an Ankheg hive and then a large crater full of silver a few sessions later. The PCs are hyping themselves up at the prospect of becoming, well, prospectors and I’m slowly readjusting the entire narrative I had planned around this display of player agency. They’ll need to wine and dine the Archon, acquire patrons, chart the area and lay claim to it, clear out monster dens, work with the local city gangs for labor, etc.

I’ve never felt this alive prepping for game night since my first campaign. It’s beautiful when players take initiative and you can react to them rather than force interaction.

>>98187391
>No, so long as a creature has a HP bar and a damage number it has a combat power. The only way that stops being a balancing factor in encounter design is if you willfully ignore it. Dont be retarded

You do realize that encounter do not need to balanced? A level 5 party does not need every encounter to be balanced around being a fight for a level 5 party.

>>98187615
While Ogres on to paths to a town tends to be the go to example, I've actually seen it happen more often in theater of the mind/free form dungeons. No matter which path the players choose to take they will always run into the DM's elaborately organized death trap or ambush encounter. Players gradually realize that no matter their choices the encounters are preordained and that they are just on a conveyor belt between them.

>>98187693
>reading comprehension failure
Esl?

>>98187551
I personally use a faction turn once per month so you don't need to track them individually. You use the table as an index and you make it react at the actions of the party or the faction during their turn. You can make it as complex as you want it to be: the tables are just a tool at your disposal. Overall it's quite a different system from your proposed super-encounter

>>98187745
nou

Grim.

>>98185764
>>98185838
>If the situation is genuinely such that the only way to a destination involves X random rolls on a single table then that may not technically be a quantum ogre but it's still fucking boring design
I never said it wasn't boring design. Just that there are plenty of cases where the party might not have much agency when it.
Simply adding a random table by itself to a quantum ogre situation isn't enough to really add agency, and therefore agency isn't the problem with it.

You've merely made the case that quantum ogres are on par with boring random encounter design, which was why I used it as an example in the first place.

>>98188256
None of those anons.
>Simply adding a random table by itself to a quantum ogre situation isn't enough to really add agency

Correct, although there have been decent explanations of how to use random tables well you seem to have ignored.

>and therefore agency isn't the problem with it.
Not sure how you got to there. Show your work.

>>98184768
The game is more fun for me and for my players when I don't use them, and less fun when I do. Since there are no advantages to using them, and no disadvantages to not using them, why would I use them?

>>98188289
>although there have been decent explanations of how to use random tables well you seem to have ignored.
I didn't ignore those. The best example earlier was the anon here >>98185073 who suggested that a highway and swamp would have different travel times to get to a destination, but weaker/stronger random encounters to compensate.
Though this is also a case where the quantum ogre starts to break down, because if the GM is explicitly painting a difference between two paths by telling the players the swamp has more dangerous monsters, it'd be strange for him to put the same monster in both places.
I simply focused on the cases where between the ogres and the random tables, all else was the same, because that helps to dig at the root of the issue.

>Not sure how you got to there. Show your work.
I'll go back to the first post here >>98184812 , because that's what I was originally replying to and where a lot of this stems from.
>If the ogre is equally likely to appear behind either identical door, and it simply appears behind whichever door the players open first, it means that the players were denied an opportunity to make a decision based on anything other than blind luck.
The reason the players in this scenario have no agency is that the PCs are met with two identical doors, have no information about what's behind either door, and have no way of learning what's behind either door. It is purely a blind guess.

I brought up random encounters as an example because if you take the above scenario of a blind guess between two doors, and replace the quantum ogre with a roll on a table, the players haven't gained any agency. If you replace the quantum ogre with an ogre behind one door and a minotaur behind the other, the players still haven't gained any agency.

>>98188399
>I simply focused on the cases where between the ogres and the random tables, all else was the same, because that helps to dig at the root of the issue.
Non-functional as an example. The entire point of the quantum ogre is its lack of contextual ties to anything.

>I brought up random encounters as an example because if you take the above scenario of a blind guess between two doors, and replace the quantum ogre with a roll on a table, the players haven't gained any agency.
This is you ignoring the requirement to contextually ground the tables both as world build and as player attainable information through action.
Even with a very crippled thought experiment, the players in the table based 2 door choice can listen to the doors and determine things about their contents before making a decision about what to open or to turn around and walk away where as the quantum ogre appears behind either door or behind them regardless.

>>98188399
>Though this is also a case where the quantum ogre starts to break down, because if the GM is explicitly painting a difference between two paths by telling the players the swamp has more dangerous monsters, it'd be strange for him to put the same monster in both places.

That is because each different path leading to different (random) encounters is the reasonable expectation.

The core of the idea about Quantum Ogres is that it is a form of Illusory Railroading. The original thought experiment on the illusion of player agency involved three different woods of which one would have the Macguffin the party is looking for when they searched it and another would have an Ogre as a form of shell game analogy. One type of DM would place the Ogre in woods A, leave woods B empty and have the macguffn in woods C. Another type of DM would have the Ogre be encountered in the first woods searched, the second wood searched be empty and the macguffin in the 3rd woods. The first DM might see the player get the railroad plot but he might also see the players skip the Ogre fight while the other DM would get the railroad plot he wanted.

>>98188508
>The entire point of the quantum ogre is its lack of contextual ties to anything.
If the GM doesn't present any contextual ties to the random encounter behind the doors or the ogre/minotaur behind the doors, do they become quantum ogres?

>the players in the table based 2 door choice can listen to the doors and determine things about their contents before making a decision
"and have no way of learning what's behind either door" was there for a reason. If the GM allows the players to learn what's behind one of the doors, then it's no longer a blind guess.
If the GM says "you don't hear anything", then we're back to square one.

You're starting from the conclusion that 'quantum ogre denies player agency', and using that to suggest that when the doors have a quantum ogre, the GM will deny player agency by refusing to let them listen at the doors, and when they don't have a quantum ogre, the GM will allow them to listen and learn what's behind it.
When in reality, the lack of player agency is the result of the GM giving the players two random doors and refusing to give them any information. There being an ogre behind one door and a minotaur behind the other still doesn't give the players any agency if the GM doesn't give them any clues.

This is whole door exchange is still an example of bad GMing, mind you. But it's to illustrate that the quantum ogre isn't what's denying the player's agency. The GM is doing that when he presents them a blind choice and refuses to elaborate.

>>98188675
>"and have no way of learning what's behind either door" was there for a reason.
Yes, the reason is your thought experiment really badly made.

>You're starting from the conclusion that 'quantum ogre denies player agency'
... that's the entire premise yes. You haven't read the articles have you?

If you want to fall back to
>everything can be bad if the person in charge of the game is bad
is somehow the key statement I'm not sure why you're taking so long to say it.

>>98188653
>One type of DM would place the Ogre in woods A, leave woods B empty and have the macguffn in woods C.
Sure, but that's still an example of a case where the players lack any real agency. They're still blindly guessing from three choices with no way of knowing which one is correct. The players avoiding the ogre is based purely on luck.
In regards to player agency, if instead the macguffin were in the center of a larger forest, and the players would run into one random encounter along the way, do they have more or less agency than if they'd had the blind pick between three different sets of woods?

Furthermore, this sort of quantum ogre example seems at odds with how the people who claim to use it in this thread actually say they use it. If somebody is making a setpiece encounter in order to save work, they're just going to have the ogre wearing the macguffin as a necklace, because then the players can't avoid it at all.
Which goes back to what I said previously about quantum ogres being pointless in practice.

>>98188700
>your thought experiment
My thought experiment was simply exchanging the quantum ogre behind the doors for a random encounter, and keeping everything else the same, in order to demonstrate that the situation doesn't meaningfully change.
>somehow the key statement
The key statement, if you want one, would be that the GM presenting the players with blind choices denies them agency, regardless of what those choices lead to.

>>98184768
>What's wrong with quantum ogres
Nothing fundamentally is wrong with having an unavoidable creature encounter. If, however, you have implied avoidance is a possibility, then you should be cool with players avoiding the threat.

A good rule of thumb is to be okay with players missing at least 75% of the shit you have prepared and, given that, you shouldn't dedicate a lot of prep work on anything in particular. General guides, outlines, and a quick reference card, etc should be handy to ensure all that stuff is ready to go. Broad stroke planning with ass pulling particulars is good DM shit. If it's straight up stated that the group "has to kill an ogre" to advance the plot and they are doing their level best to not have that fight? Sure, they can STILL avoid it, however, the ogre should advance their own goal because the party wasted time avoiding what they were supposed to be doing resulting in fail state for that section of the overall plot having some kind of lasting reprecussions. Let them try whatever the fuck they want but fucking about should result in punishment in some way. The easiest way to implement this is by having some sort of timer advancing. Just a bead on line moving a bit each time the group does something so they know time is a fininte resource they are squandering is enough to make most players lock in.

>>98188835
>The players avoiding the ogre is based purely on luck.

Yep, but the possibility to avoid the Ogre does exist.

>Furthermore, this sort of quantum ogre example seems at odds with how the people who claim to use it in this thread actually say they use it.

Quantum Ogres are very much about a GM mentality built around "I came up with and prepared this encounter so no matter what happens this encounter is going to play out no matter what you the players chose to do."

>My thought experiment was simply exchanging the quantum ogre behind the doors for a random encounter, and keeping everything else the same, in order to demonstrate that the situation doesn't meaningfully change.

Your focus shouldn't be on the blind choice but on forcing the DM's choice encounter. Two doors with Door A having an Ogre and Door B having Minotaur isn't a case of Quantum Ogres no matter how you try to spin it. The Players chose A they fight an Ogre and if they chose B they fight a Minotaur. If the players open a door and have a 50% chance of fighting an Ogre or a 50% chance of fighting a Minotaur also isn't a case of a Quantum Ogre.

A Quantum Ogre occurs if opening Door A, Door B or turning around an leaving leads you the players fighting the Ogre because the DM decided that the players were going to have an Ogre encounter.

>The key statement, if you want one, would be that the GM presenting the players with blind choices denies them agency, regardless of what those choices lead to.
NAYRT but maybe it can be thought of like this: Quantum Ogres are a special case of blind choice, a false choice, because they don't look blind (the PCs may choose based on any number of contextual cues, indeed the GM may be very forthcoming about sounds behind doors or views from hills) but they are blind because the content behind the choice is divorced entirely from their attempts to navigate.

>>98188851
plenty wrong with it, you mean.

>>98184768
Nothing. As long as the players don't find out.
They don't need to know about every little logic path behind the dm screen. If they think their choices matter let them.
I've done enough leg work filling entire narratives with branching and linking paths and all too often I've seen so much of it ignored. So sometimes they really just have to fucking face that ogre with maybe a little set dressing change to fit whichever way they went but if I've decided they have to fight it they're gonna fight it and almost every time they don't know any better and everyone can continue on happy playing their fucking game.

>>98189141
Nah, I agree with anon. There's nothing wrong with an unavoidable creature encounter - but it's in the same classification as, "there's nothing wrong with always swimming in the shallows." You're hamstringing your ability to grow as a GM and, ultimately, you're putting unnecessary harm on yourself as "winging it" is much healthier for your stress and time than agonizing over every little detail.

>>98188983
>Yep, but the possibility to avoid the Ogre does exist.
Sure, but it's not as a result of the player's agency or decision making, which is why it doesn't seem like the actual explanation.

>Two doors with Door A having an Ogre and Door B having Minotaur isn't a case of Quantum Ogres no matter how you try to spin it.
I didn't say it was. I have asked if that situation gives the players more agency if the choice is equally blind. Pointing out that these other situations aren't quantum ogres highlights my point.
My focus is on the blind choice because that seems to be the actual issue in practice. The players lack agency because they're being asked to pick between two doors with no context.

>>98189181
>>98189119
Forgot to link, but this is still relevant.

>>98189181
>My focus is on the blind choice because that seems to be the actual issue in practice
The actual issue is the DM disrespecting the agency of the players and shifting things around behind the screen. So it's about agency but not in the way you think. There will always be decisions players will have to make in which they can't reliably predict the outcome of their actions by the nature of rpgs being a simulation of a real fake world. What matters in this scenario specifically is not the lack of agency but the breaking of trust. Choosing between two secret doors is fun and people do it all the time both literally and metaphorically.

>>98189234
I think that goes back to what I mentioned earlier about how the dishonesty feels like the bigger argument against quantum ogres.
If the GM is giving the players fake clues to pretend it isn't a blind choice, and the clues don't actually serve as any indication, then that is a denial of agency, but it's one done by actively misleading the players.

>>98189275
>What matters in this scenario specifically is not the lack of agency but the breaking of trust
Pretty much. The players are being given a choice that doesn't actually matter when the GM is saying it matters.
The GM putting two sets of stairs in a foyer that the party can see lead to the same place also doesn't give the players a real choice, but it's also not lying to the players by pretending the choice matters.

>>98189348
I think we're in agreement

>>98189156
Then you're also wrong.

>>98187215
>>98187542
I think my conception of QO vs this is different. I didn't realize it's literally just when thatguy DMs force an encounter that they've spent a lot of time crafting.
My DM style is way more freeform, I hate doing prep beyond the skeleton

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>>98190434
Yeah at it's heart the Quantum Ogre is just an example of pic related.

>>98186869
>I feel the need to expound at length on something I not only know nothing about, but absolutely refuse to do the bare minimum of research to actually form an informed opinion. I'm just going to continue to spout barely relevant bullshit.


Cool, great, hope that works out well for you.

>>98188345
/thread.

>>98184768
Nothing until it is revealed to the players. If they never realise it's totally fine.

>>98190921
Abusing them tends to be how players start IDing them. They might be fooled once or twice but perceptive players will eventually notice.

>>98190537
Just wait till you find out how the entire game is made. Hint: someone has to intentionally produce it ahead of time.

>>98184768
My players are dumb as fuck when it comes to ttrpgs. They just want to roll dice, socialize, and sometimes drink. I quantum ogre them all the time and they don't care/don't notice.

>>98190921
Whydo you want to lie to your friends?

>>98191921
>Run a bland, uninteresting game
>Players are disengaged with it

Really a chicken and the egg scenario.

>>98191323
Yeah, and you intentionally produce it in such a way that ensures players can make decisions that matter. Idiot.

>>98184957
>In this context, the players still don't have any agency. They don't really have a way to know what's on a road ahead, and not encountering an ogre is simply blind luck. Luck that the GM determines, because he's the one who made the table and therefore decided the odds of the ogre result.
not quite.
this is a solely player-focused way of viewing a roll table. the point of the roll table is that the GM has to mentally react to which result of the roll table they get. this GM surprise factor is multiplied by how much time passes between the preparation of the roll table, and its execution.
Even if the GM prepared the table right before the session began, players still have opportunities to interact with the game state in a way that isn't the random encounter, changing gear, buying and selling items, picking fights with NPCs.
This will change the way each result of the random encounter will actually play out compared to how the GM envisioned when first mentally preparing it. If there's a troll on the table, and one player bought a flaming sword before the random encounter, that result becomes a free win. if nobody has any fire or magical damage, the troll becomes half the session instead, so maybe the GM will add that the troll is guarding a tar pit or a ransacked carriage full of explosives (or just lets a troll beat their ass while reminding them they can flee *cough*)

>>98192029
player focus is the only focus that matters.

>>98191024
>They might be fooled once or twice
per session*

>>98192047
how much you paying?

>>98191921
>They just want to roll dice, socialize, and sometimes drink.
is that not why you're there too?

>>98191945
Nah, I think different people want different things out of a game. If they wanted to quit, they would let me know or not show up/ghost. They are pretty enthusiastic.
>>98192106
Yup, but I have the added responsibility of quantum ogreing them.

>>98192029
>players still have opportunities to interact with the game state in a way that isn't the random encounter, changing gear, buying and selling items, picking fights with NPCs.
If your premise is that the players lacking agency at a given point doesn't negate their prior agency, I agree.

>>98192154
>the players lacking agency at a given point doesn't negate their prior agency
it is just as cringe to undo any prepared advantages as it is to full heal if their actions beforehand left them wounded or lacking supplies.

>>98192091
Cope DMigger

>>98192129
No you don't.

>>98191921
What do you run for that? Or I suppose even further, how much do you actually use game rules and how much is just making it up as you go so everyone has fun?

A lot of midwits here think that the gm is a shell game dealer trying to scam them
instead of an illusionist that tries to entertainment them.

>>98191323
>omeone has to intentionally produce it ahead of time.
Bait? This is a new flavour

>>98185063
When will this bitch have a good day?

>>98187465
>No, my system has rules for reach, traps, line of sight, cover, etc without requiring a grid, or maps of any kind.
May I see it?

>>98193256
Are you going to move the goalposts? I'll know if you're lying.

>>98184768
Quantum Ogre is only Quantum Wrong.
It becomes offensive when noticed.
But like a dead relative under a concrete garage floor, it need never come to light, and is sometimes the only practical solution.

>>98184768
Nothing. I use it all the time.

You prep some shit and, at some point in the game, need something, so you use it.

Every GM uses it regularly.

>>98184812
>the players were not able to act with intelligence.
Huehuehuehueh

>>98184812
>The main issue is that the illusion of choice means that the players were not able to act with intelligence.
If they experience themselves as having made a free choice, then what violates that isn't whether there's a quantum ogre. It's whether they knew there was. We aren't certain that human beings even possess free will, nor the capactity to make free choices. All that we can say is that we experience ourselves doing so. There's literally no objective difference between the players believing that they've made a choice and their actually making one. Because experiencing themselves as having made one is all that they're capable of doing.

>>98193653
Still not what a quantum orge is. Holy shit people are fucking dumb.

>>98192583
>peasant
as expected. begone, brokie, and take your "the customer is always right" bullshit back to the delulu games you play in your head