High-Context (No Phonelobster)

[Orion]

The other day I was on an RPG discord and I started talking about “embedding,” which is the name I've assigned to a certain axis along which I like to classify different RPG playstyles. People asked me some questions about it and eventually suggested that I should write it up for my blog. I haven't gotten around to starting one, but I figured that before I do I could workshop the content here and get some feedback on it. I'm somewhat concerned that “embedding” may not be the best word for what I'm talking about, and also not sure that any one word can do all the jobs I'm trying to make it do, so I'm very open to the idea of chopping up, renaming, or reconfiguring these observations. Let's begin with some bullet points

[*]Embedding is a big picture idea that can apply to various elements of a game. Characters, Adventures, and even campaign structures can be described as heavily embedded or lightly embedded, and various game mechanics can be embedding-friendly or unfriendly.[*]An ongoing game has a context, which we can break down into situation and history. Embedded content has a close relationship with that context; unembedded content doesn't.[*]Something can be embedded because it is affected by context, because it alters the context, or both.[*]Embedding is not inherently good or bad; there are good reasons to embed and good reasons not to embed. It's also not all-or-nothing. Most groups will find that some types of embedding improve their experience and others detract.[*]4th edition was by far the least embedded version of D&D; 3rd edition is the next-least-embedded. Most of the 3rd-inspired heartbreaker design I've seen has tended to decrease embedding further.[*]I hope that this analytical framework will be useful to designers operating anywhere up and down the spectrum, but I personally am more interested in high-embedding designs and hope this essay can nurture a discourse about them.[*]I might go back later and correct against my bias by writing about the advantages of not embedding
[*]I think the easiest way to explain “embedding” is to start by talking about adventure modules.

Let's start with a mini-glossary: Module: A chunk of content intended to function as “one adventure,” commercial or homebrew. “Iron mine overrun by spiders.” “Orc warcamp in foothills.” “Elf prince taken by cultists.” Situation: The other stuff on the world map near the adventure. History: Game history, not setting history; what the party has done before and will do next. When you drop a module into your campaign it's going to be near some other places where other things are going on, and if this isn't the first session then the party will already have done things, found stuff, and made choices. That's your context. We can say that anything which links the module to that context “embeds” the scenario in your game. You can link context to the front of the module, which means that the other stuff on the map or the choices your party has already made can influence the way the module plays, or you can link context to the back of the module, meaning that the outcome of the module can change some of the other stuff on the map, or the PCs' future opportunities. We will look at 3 places that linkage can happen – in the challenge structure, the rewards, and the other consequences.

Challenge: The basic questions are "how do we know if this module is suitable for this party?" and "what tools are the players expected to draw on to overcome the obstacles." Our example module will be “orc warband fortified in hills.” In an unembedded game, we screen off the situation, so we know the party needs to be able clear the warcamp on their own. We also screen off history, so although we know what level the party is, we can't assume they have specific magic items, rare mounts, or unusual allies. If our game has wealth-by-level we can give them the appropriate ornaments, but apart from that we want the players to win the adventure using the class features they wrote down because of level. Let's hope we're playing a game with consistent and well-reasoned level benchmarks. If every class has anti-horde abilities come online at level 5 (fighter gets whirlwind, sorcerer gets fireball, rogue gets gas grenade), then we can call this a “level 5 adventure” and be confident that any suitable party will be up to the challenge.

Suppose that some classes or some builds of some classes don't have effective anti-horde abilities at level 5. As soon as we find ourselves playing a game where some level 5 parties might not be able to beat the orcs with their class features, the challenge is at least somewhat embedded. We can still call it a “level 5* adventure” but now it's an adventure for some level 5 parties. We probably still expect the group to tackle the adventure with the stuff written on their sheets, but when their class features alone aren't enough, we're also going to look at the stuff they've accumulated along the way. Maybe we're playing a system where fighters don't get whirlwind and rogues don't get gas grenades, but fortunately for the PCs, this rogue found a necklace of fireballs and a manticore mount; this fighter was appointed as the Baron's Marchwarden and given command of twenty archers. The group's history made this a reasonable challenge.

Finally, suppose we dispense with the idea that the players will only use the allies and abilities written on their character sheets. What if they start exploiting the situation into which we've dropped our orc warcamp. Maybe they look at the map and sees that a brood of wyverns has its hunting ground just east of the camp; they lure the orcs out there and let the monsters thin their ranks. Maybe there's a goblin warren to the north; they negotiate an alliance with the goblin lord and agree to split the spoils. Maybe they collect evidence that the orcs are planning to assault the town, then take it to the Baron and ask him to dispatch soldiers; they end up serving mostly just as local guides leading the royal army to the enemy. At this point, we can no longer even assign a level to this adventure, because the party's level might matter much less than the geography, the diplomatic situation, and the party's social clout. The challenge is now fully embedded in the campaign situation.

Stay tuned for updates about embedded rewards and consequences, and then some more thoughts about what this lens is actually good for.[/list]

[Foxwarrior]

Hmm, I think this is often what I think of when I think of an RPG being "balanced", or perhaps being able to be balanced, that in an "unembedded" game the game designer has access to enough information to ensure that every PC is equally useful, while in an "embedded" game it's not possible for the game designer to do much balancing at all, in the conventional sense.

Well, I did have this idea for an RPG where all of your upgrades were gotten through training montages, eating the organs of mythic beasts you slay, reading the specific spell books owned by the wizards you defeat, etc... a purely "embedded" advancement system, but set up so everyone gets to advance together, taking non-identical upgrades. The thing that seemed overwhelming about building that RPG was that any attempt at balance or player ability to seek out upgrades would require the game designer to build out the whole world, placing the mythic beasts and wise ninja master hermits and such.

[PhoneLobster]

I'm sorry but this is basically nonsense, especially the choice and repeated use of "embedded" as jargon utterly unrelated to the plain meaning of the word, and then having it change in meaning to suit whatever you are saying as you progress.

You seem to have just now "discovered" that contextual party/encounter balance is a bit of a mess and more flexible and adaptive GMing techniques do all sorts of things that canned adventures on rails can't. You might even have realized that your rules and advice on their use could attempt to account for and facilitate this in some ways. That's nice, it's a good thing to think about.

However this isn't new, it isn't one thing and it's not remotely "embedding".

It''s not precisely wrong to consider this stuff, but the more you senselessly attempt to jargonise it and fit it into an arbitrary terminology the more it will ultimately become wrong. Attempting to turn everything into an abstract jargon based philosophy is just the road to your own version of a GNS debacle.

[virgil]

One thing I've wondered about is the nature of class & level in your game, or as I like to call it, the Lesson of Elothar. On the one hand, players clearly accept their characters advancing in things by mandate they wouldn't have necessarily chosen in a more loose advancement system. On the other hand, the eponymous PrC is clearly a critique at how such structures can conflict with the campaign; though Frank & K discovered through Elothar's popularity that people are just fine with that.

As a bit of a segue, it's my experience that players are fiercely entrenched in the paradigm of planning out their character's advancement almost/entirely independent of the campaign's timeline and setting. Classes have the advantage that you can embed (heyoo!) them into the setting to ensure that your PCs at least mostly fit in the campaign. More open-ended systems require more work (reading and/or discussion) if you want your characters to fit in the setting and the narrative, otherwise you could end up with centaurs in an urban campaign.

It's this debate that's occasionally reminded me that sometimes what a person wants is not an RPG, but (cooperative) storytelling. There's obviously a spectrum here, which is kind of Orion's whole thesis, and I trust them to provide better thoughts on this than what I have given here.

[hogarth]

In ye olde days, we would have called your "unembedded" game a "beer and pretzels" game. I.e., something you don't have to think about too hard in order to play.

[OgreBattle]

Embedding means there's some things a PC is expected to have ("Ability to hit incorporeal monsters" "the goblin king gives you a folding canoe") yeah?

Like the Same Game Test is about how well different PC's fare against challenges of level X, the higher the level the more specific things like escaping force cages and flight are expected. Would you say that's embedding?

I think AD&D to D&D3e is pretty alright up to level6 challenges, and super bulldookie monsters that shut down the melee swording guy are 'suppose to be' foreshadowed in the story.

So you have a Lowest Common Denominator ("PC that moves 30' and attacks in melee, or expends limited reasource to attack within 60-100ft) that's embedded, then anything that stomps all over that should be warned, hinted at, quested to overcome in the adventure sessions.

[Foxwarrior]

In ye olde days, we would have called your "unembedded" game a "beer and pretzels" game. I.e., something you don't have to think about too hard in order to play.

I think that might be backwards, in an "embedded" game then sometimes you get turned into a vampire and just bite everyone to death with your abrupt power jump. You gotta have good cheer and a loose attitude (which beer helps with) to not get too upset about other players getting story-related powerups when you don't.

[hogarth]

In ye olde days, we would have called your "unembedded" game a "beer and pretzels" game. I.e., something you don't have to think about too hard in order to play.

I think that might be backwards, in an "embedded" game then sometimes you get turned into a vampire and just bite everyone to death with your abrupt power jump. You gotta have good cheer and a loose attitude (which beer helps with) to not get too upset about other players getting story-related powerups when you don't.

I don't know what to tell you. In ye olde days, the DM would grab a module and you would play it with little or no context other than "you heard about this dungeon full of loot" or "some guy hired you to get his McGuffin" and away you go. As opposed to

We can say that anything which links the module to that context “embeds” the scenario in your game.

[Blicero]

First, Orion: I found your post kind of difficult to read and understand. You talk about a lot of specific examples and terms but never spell out what you mean by "embedded" until the end. I'd recommend rewriting a bit.

Second, the novel "embedded" and "non-embedded" terminology is maybe not needed; this seems to relate to the existing "combat as war" vs. "combat as sport" dichotomy (https://www.enworld.org/threads/very-lo ... es.317715/). Non-embedded modules fit within the combat-as-sport setting, and embedded modules tend more toward combat-as-war. The ~OSR~ (such as it exists and is a useful category) has thought a lot about the combat-as-war / "embedded" side of things in the past ten years.

[Blicero]

In ye olde days, we would have called your "unembedded" game a "beer and pretzels" game. I.e., something you don't have to think about too hard in order to play.

I think that might be backwards, in an "embedded" game then sometimes you get turned into a vampire and just bite everyone to death with your abrupt power jump. You gotta have good cheer and a loose attitude (which beer helps with) to not get too upset about other players getting story-related powerups when you don't.

I don't know what to tell you. In ye olde days, the DM would grab a module and you would play it with little or no context other than "you heard about this dungeon full of loot" or "some guy hired you to get his McGuffin" and away you go. As opposed to

We can say that anything which links the module to that context “embeds” the scenario in your game.

"Beer and pretzels" implies, to me, gaming that is casual and low-thought. That seems orthogonal to the embedded / non-embedded distinction.

[hogarth]

"Beer and pretzels" implies, to me, gaming that is casual and low-thought. That seems orthogonal to the embedded / non-embedded distinction.

I have no idea how you would

[...] start exploiting the situation into which we've dropped our orc warcamp. Maybe they look at the map and sees that a brood of wyverns has its hunting ground just east of the camp; they lure the orcs out there and let the monsters thin their ranks. Maybe there's a goblin warren to the north; they negotiate an alliance with the goblin lord and agree to split the spoils. Maybe they collect evidence that the orcs are planning to assault the town, then take it to the Baron and ask him to dispatch soldiers; they end up serving mostly just as local guides leading the royal army to the enemy. At this point, we can no longer even assign a level to this adventure, because the party's level might matter much less than the geography, the diplomatic situation, and the party's social clout [...]

in a low-thought game.

[Blicero]

"Beer and pretzels" implies, to me, gaming that is casual and low-thought. That seems orthogonal to the embedded / non-embedded distinction.

I have no idea how you would

[...] start exploiting the situation into which we've dropped our orc warcamp. Maybe they look at the map and sees that a brood of wyverns has its hunting ground just east of the camp; they lure the orcs out there and let the monsters thin their ranks. Maybe there's a goblin warren to the north; they negotiate an alliance with the goblin lord and agree to split the spoils. Maybe they collect evidence that the orcs are planning to assault the town, then take it to the Baron and ask him to dispatch soldiers; they end up serving mostly just as local guides leading the royal army to the enemy. At this point, we can no longer even assign a level to this adventure, because the party's level might matter much less than the geography, the diplomatic situation, and the party's social clout [...]

in a low-thought game.

Everything Orion mentioned as being emblematic of an "embedded" game could be accomplished in rules-lite improv setting where the DM is agreeable and there are no meaningful consequences of failure. That would be very low-thought experience, where everyone is working together to tell an interesting story.

[Dean]

Everything Orion mentioned as being emblematic of an "embedded" game could be accomplished in rules-lite improv setting where the DM is agreeable and there are no meaningful consequences of failure. That would be very low-thought experience, where everyone is working together to tell an interesting story.

You have that completely backwards. You're saying that more robust experience must be some freeform jazz storytelling bullshit precisely because it requires more rules, not less. You're saying there's no rules because you don't know how you'd build rules for luring warcamps, making goblinoid alliances, and so on. But just because you don't know how to build a robust social system doesn't mean a game who's game report involved trojan horse ploys and forging allegiances must inherently be rules lite. It just would be if you wrote it cause you can't envision those rules.

I can agree that any game module that was published by any company I can name today that promised that level of narrative freedom would definitely be lying to you and if you bought it you'd get some bullshit roll a dice and argue with your DM style "Lasers and Feelings" type game. But that's a failure of the current industry standard, not an inherent law of gaming. A game with better rules allows more narrative freedom, that's why the games with the best rules get popular.

[PhoneLobster]

Canned adventure is canned adventure, you can only fit so much into the can, the end.

I'd like to think you can have a better rules system that better supports a flexible and adaptive GM, meaning that being flexible like that is neither a rules lite nor a rules heavy experience.

But I think that oh I don't know due to the limits of finite amounts of text a canned adventure can never offer such significant amounts of flexibility as described here. Not even in a very flexible or extensive rules system that was made to support that kind of play.

In the end this entire "embedding" rant still just reads like someone discovering the wonder of going off the canned adventure rails. Because canned adventures have rails, it's how they fit the train in the can.

[Harshax]

There’s something about this idea that Troubles me. Side quests are by definition, not-embedded, but they have an impact on a campaign arc in that they often provide characters an opportunity to gain experience and power.

When I think of embedded vs not-embedded in absolute terms, it reminds me sitcoms where, regardless the episode’s plot, the characters and dynamics of the show do not change in a meaningful way from one episode to another.

And, if you apply the sitcom sensibility to adventures and their participants, it would mean that the characters would not gain or lose anything meaningful in terms of resources or power.

Is that intentional?

[Blicero]

You have that completely backwards. You're saying that more robust experience must be some freeform jazz storytelling bullshit precisely because it requires more rules, not less. You're saying there's no rules because you don't know how you'd build rules for luring warcamps, making goblinoid alliances, and so on. But just because you don't know how to build a robust social system doesn't mean a game who's game report involved trojan horse ploys and forging allegiances must inherently be rules lite. It just would be if you wrote it cause you can't envision those rules.

That is, in fact, not what I'm saying at all. I'm impressed by how badly you misunderstood me actually. I'd love to meet the alternate-Blicero who wrote the post you're actually responding to.

What if they start exploiting the situation into which we've dropped our orc warcamp. Maybe they look at the map and sees that a brood of wyverns has its hunting ground just east of the camp; they lure the orcs out there and let the monsters thin their ranks. Maybe there's a goblin warren to the north; they negotiate an alliance with the goblin lord and agree to split the spoils. Maybe they collect evidence that the orcs are planning to assault the town, then take it to the Baron and ask him to dispatch soldiers; they end up serving mostly just as local guides leading the royal army to the enemy.

A game could handle this situation in many different ways: It could be "freeform jazz storytelling bullshit", or it could be D&D with a permissive DM, or it could be via abstract boardgame-type systems, or it could be a game with mechanical support for robust social interactions and deceit. I'm sure there are more options as well; many or most of them could lead to fun times playing elfgames. According to Orion, the quoted text is emblematic of an "embedded" module. Thus, "embeddedness" does not restrict how rules-heavy or mechanically rich a game is, because of the diversity of options I have presented.

[MGuy]

Embeddedness as far as I'm reading is a question of how contextual the options for resolving the main conflict of a given adventure is. In reading the responses and thinking about it I think that using 'what is written on the character sheet' as a benchmark might've been a mistake in describing the issues Orion wants to cover considering what even would be covered on a character sheet is different from game to game. So it is fully possible to have contextual options align with things explicitly written on a list of explicit abilities players have and/or systems players are expected to engage with.

Orion lists two different editions of the game. 4e is less embedded than 3e. What could this mean in this context? Well we know that in 4e, similarly to MMOs your abilities written on your character sheet don't care much about the context of the greater world because there are not many interactions between them. Skills ran off of a treadmill where the challenge numbers were oriented more around what level the player was at than the incidentals of the situation they were in. This is different from 3e where the same skills interacted with the conditions players would find themselves in.

Orion describes an adventure here as well where the character abilities are a separate consideration to what players might be able to leverage from the context the adventure is taking place in. I can see a possible mistake being made here as I don't think that Orion is considering the fact that it is entirely possible for players to have abilities on their character sheets, or for the games mechanics to have a structure for handling, context based situations.

Let's take the bluff skill. There is simply no way to write a sane bluff skill that isn't tied very closely with the context of whatever situation its used in. If your system can't handle different degrees of how 'believable' a statement is, even if that degree is just determined by the GM (which is pretty much required), then that is a failed implementation of the skill. So it is very likely that a game can consider that players will do things like get allies, weaken enemy organization through subterfuge, etc and have it be a real thing players can write on their character sheet.

There was an article I read a while ago about dissociated mechanics that I'm reminded of where considerations players make might be ones that would be disassociated from the considerations the actual character in universe would make. I think this might be somewhat related to setting up your adventure with considerations players or a GM might make about the feasibility of the characters being able to get through an adventure (IE do they meet benchmark X by having Y type abilities?) versus more in-universe considerations.

[Orion]

Rewards: Our example scenarios this time will be “iron mine overrun with giant spiders” and “elf prince kidnapped by cultists.” There might occasionally be extra or unusual rewards “unlocked” by some contextual interaction, but for the most part the rewards of a module are usually baked in. The main question we're interested in is what impact those rewards will have on the game once the PCs get their hands on them. Fungible rewards can usually be considered unembedded. If all the PCs get for their trouble is some XP and some gold, then it won't matter later whether they cleared out the mine or rescued the prince, they just got x% closer to their next level up. Magic items are also unembedded if they're placed randomly, or placed arbitrarily, or if the PCs could and would have bought the same items with money.

Game mechanical benefits count as embedded when they're adventure-specific in a meaningful way. Maybe you clear out the mine and the spider takes a spider egg to raise as a mount, the rogue takes home a bushel of spidersilk to craft into armor and climbing gloves, and the sorcerer eats a venom sac and learns a new poison spell. Fictional benefits you can write on your character sheet work out similarly. If the elf queen promises that the next time you speak her name aloud, a squad of pegasus knights will be dispatched to rescue you from peril, that's basically just a really weird scroll of monster summoning. Either type of reward will enable your players to do things they couldn't do if they'd chosen a different adventure, so they build up the role of history in your game.

Fully embedded rewards, by contrast, don't go on your character sheet at all. A fully embedded reward is just an update to the fictional situation that your character feels good about or benefits from. If killing the spiders brings back the mining jobs, leading to the town blacksmith re-opening and a drop in local crimes, that's a fully embedded reward. If rescuing the elf prince leads to the elf queen opening her borders to humans, enabling pilgrims and merchants to pass through her lands and causing elf merchants to begin selling rare herbs and woods in the human frontier towns, same thing.

The next update will cover "interactions" (replacing the planned post on "consequences") and then I'll be ready to explain why this is actually a useful lens for designers and how you can use embedding or disembedding to guide your development of class features, level progressions, and gear systems.

EDIT: One of the reasons 4E is the least embedded system is that it encouraged the DM to hand out magic items off player wish lists and gave the PCs a ritual to melt down vendor trash into magic dust so they could craft the rest of their shopping carts.

EDIT 2:

And, if you apply the sitcom sensibility to adventures and their participants, it would mean that the characters would not gain or lose anything meaningful in terms of resources or power.

I'm kind of comparing each actual adventure against a hypothetical generic replacement adventure. From that perspective, gaining gold and xp isn't adding any context, because you could have gotten it from any adventure. The specific adventures you did aren't important. Or to put it another way, the GM could've just had you roll up higher-level characters with no history at all and it wouldn't make a difference.

[virgil]

Another way to word it is to ask whether your campaign is episodic or has narrative inertia. Can you discern the difference between players who went through one adventure rather than another? Do specific actions have narrative effect that persists beyond the adventure?

Using my attempt at simplifying the debate, I have to wonder whether it's worth applying the (un)embedded label to everything. By your phrasing, nearly all nonmagical equipment (backpacks, swords, etc) are unembedded by the very nature of fungible currency existing; and the same should apply if magic items are given similar narrative weight to a modern technology. I also question your phrasing, as it implies that the moment you assign rules to improved vendor access due to open borders (or whatever), the consequence of the spider mine adventure becomes less embedded.

[Orion]

Interactions: The key questions this time are “will anything from outside this module affect the players while they run through it?” “does this module project force or advance an agenda?” and “will anything from this module turn up again later?” Our example scenarios will be “dungeon on a desert island,” “orc warcamp in the foothills,” and “necromancer squatting in ancient tomb.” The desert island dungeon is the archetypal un-embedded example. It waits around doing nothing until we're ready for it. We teleport there, loot the place, and teleport home. We don't have to interact with anything else on our way in, and any monsters or treasures we leave behind will just stay there forgotten. We know it's unembedded because it's sealed off from the rest of the game. Depending on how you run it, the orc camp could be just as sealed off. If they stay in their camp waiting for the PCs to approach, and there are no obstacles preventing the PCs from reaching them, and any escapees or survivors will disappear in the night and never be seen again, then they're effectively sealed off just like the desert island.

Most Dms would embed the orc camp at least a little bit. They might use travel times and encounter tables so that when the PCs try to find the camp, they have to interact with some of the other content in the orcs' vicinity. The might even add orc patrols from the camp to the local encounter tables, so that the orcs could turn up while the PCs were on some other adventure. They might tuck any named character that survives into an upcoming adventure, like sticking the escaping orc warlock in as a new apprentice to the “necromancer in ancient tomb” scenario.

I'd call these interactions fully embedded when they reach the level of spawning all-new adventures or when you start tracking updates to the fictional situation that aren't actually “adventure content” at all. If the surviving orcs re-organize under a new leader and go looking for another stronghold to operate out of, or if you're thinking about raids from unassimilated orcs suppressing the sheep industry while assimilated orcs snap up cheap labor jobs or something, you've definitely embedded those consequences.

Interactions are probably the least important kind of embedding for me personally and I definitely think it's possible to go overboard with this. Please don't think that I'm advocating for Dms to go into the mouth of madness trying to simulate clockwork economies. I personally care about rewards first, challenges second, and interactions third. Up next: Why this stuff matters.

[PhoneLobster]

Oh FFS Orion. That's it I'm going to point by point this...

Fungible rewards can usually be considered unembedded.

If you can or do sell it its not "embedded" in the context of game play? So basically you can present the most story relevant item you like but if the player just doesn't like it and sells it for cash or even has that option it's "unembedded" you do know you are talking nonsense right?

Magic items are also unembedded if they're placed randomly, or placed arbitrarily, or if the PCs could and would have bought the same items with money.

You do know that the GM deciding to place items according to the theme and history of the current, previous and planned story IS arbitrary placement right? So the rewards can't be random. But the GM can't decide to place them according to subjective factors like perceived context? How the hell can "embedded" rewards possibly be placed?

And the one eyed pirate king's magic eyeball ISN'T contextually significant if I could have bought one like it in a shop somewhere? WHY? Just WHY?

Game mechanical benefits count as embedded when they're adventure-specific in a meaningful way. Maybe you clear out the mine and the spider takes a spider egg to raise as a mount, the rogue takes home a bushel of spidersilk to craft into armor and climbing gloves, and the sorcerer eats a venom sac and learns a new poison spell.

As long as none of those things could have been sold, are available to be purchased, occurred as a random drop or were placed by arbitrary GM judgement.

I also feel like you've invested a lot of mistaken value in "spider themed items in the spider nest are the only "good" (where good is "embededness") items. Whats wrong with a magic sword on a dead adventurer again? I mean aside from it sharing in common all the things that should put silk crafting components on the bad children's christmas list but don't "because spiders".

...that's basically just a really weird scroll of monster summoning... Either type of reward will enable your players to do things they couldn't do if they'd chosen a different adventure, so they build up the role of history in your game.

First of all. It's basically a thing you could buy or sell and it was definitely arbitrarily awarded, so, out the embedded window with it.

But second of all... a "weird monster summoning spell", or better armour or a new spell, are things you could not get from another adventure? Hell even a specific pegasus summoning or silk armour or poison spell cannot drop in another adventure? Really? Does your world really drop thematics with a strict segregation that would make video games blush? And are those items really that unique even if walled off? And still this doesn't explain how they get to ignore breaking every rule that you told us earlier makes them "unembedded".

Fully embedded rewards, by contrast, don't go on your character sheet at all. A fully embedded reward is just an update to the fictional situation that your character feels good about or benefits from.

So "fully embedded" things are the least game integrated? Really? The game goes out of its way to mechanically describe "spider silk thief Armour" as especially unique to "the other better thief armour you would have got otherwise" and THAT is "more embedded"... than the other thief armour... but to be MOST embedded... it needs to stop being a game mechanical object?

Not that the things you describe cannot be game mechanical objects, especially the whole new blacksmith shop full of fancy metal swords the new range of fancy alchemy and bows in the other shops. But hey. They're in shops and can be bought or sold so those "herbs and woods" CAN'T be embedded can they? And if they go onto your god damn character sheet they DEFINITELY aren't embedded.

In fact the LEAST embedded thing is the mithril sword you bought at the blacksmith that re-opened after the spider mine was cleared. Because it was a thing you BOUGHT with dirty dirty unembedded cash (or worse by selling spider silk turning it also into an unembedded fungible reward thus making it unclean too) and you got it IN A SHOP and it went ON YOUR SHEET. Also you COULD have got it in another shop, three kingdoms over but still, AND you COULD theoretically have found one or been given one as payment for OTHER ADVENTURES you could have been having.

then I'll be ready to explain why this is actually a useful lens for designers

Really.

EDIT: One of the reasons 4E is the least embedded system is that it encouraged the DM to hand out magic items off player wish lists and gave the PCs a ritual to melt down vendor trash into magic dust so they could craft the rest of their shopping carts.

If this entire thing is just a mask off reveal away from being a "magic item shops fundamentally bad" rant I am even more disappointing with your idea than I currently am.

The specific adventures you did aren't important. Or to put it another way, the GM could've just had you roll up higher-level characters with no history at all and it wouldn't make a difference.

... you do know the players and GM actually... experience prior games right?

"The adventure where we just got a big pile of gold" IS a thing contextually meaningful for a story very possible more importantly or pivotally so than "I did the spider cave and all I got was this lousy t-shirt".

Pretty much by definition whatever actually happened, even if it could have been something else, even if it doesn't matter, even if it doesn't get call backs IS part of the context of the story. That's that there you know, plain English instead of made up gibberish.

[Orion]

Have some more cryptic bullet points. I'll try to unpack them for y'all later.

[*]It might look like I've just slapped an arbitrary label on a bunch of unrelated concepts and that all these types of "embedding" have nothing to do with each other.[*]However, it turns out that there are deep synergies between different types of embedding. (And between different types of non-embedding) The more sliders you push in one direction, the more pressure you should feel to push the other sliders the same way.[*]Some character abilities (like sending) tend to promote embedding, while others tend to restrict it (like plane shift).[*]Higher level abilities tend to tilt the scales harder. At high levels, your heartbreaker will probably tilt strongly one way or the other.[*]It's good to know what your system cares about modeling and what it doesn't care about; also, rewards are more fun when they stay relevant longer.[*]Therefore, you might want to try to promote continuity between your low-level and your high-level play. If your high-level abilities tend to delete context, make your game low-context all the way. If your high-level abilities tend to exploit context, make that context relevant from day 1.[*]Some abilities (like item creation) can either promote embedding or negate it, depending on how they're implemented. Decide which way you're going before you design those abilities.

EDIT: It would be very helpful if people wanted to let me know which of the bullet points are self-explanatory and which ones should be explained.
EDIT: Also let me know if you think I should try engaging with PhoneLobster. I'd consider it worthwhile iff other people have similar questions to his.

First, Orion: I found your post kind of difficult to read and understand. You talk about a lot of specific examples and terms but never spell out what you mean by "embedded" until the end. I'd recommend rewriting a bit.

Second, the novel "embedded" and "non-embedded" terminology is maybe not needed; this seems to relate to the existing "combat as war" vs. "combat as sport" dichotomy (https://www.enworld.org/threads/very-lo ... es.317715/). Non-embedded modules fit within the combat-as-sport setting, and embedded modules tend more toward combat-as-war. The ~OSR~ (such as it exists and is a useful category) has thought a lot about the combat-as-war / "embedded" side of things in the past ten years.

I'm definitely hoping to be able to do another rewrite after this thread shakes out to make this cleaner and more straightforward. Thank you for putting in the effort to engage with it in this unpolished state. I hope that the material I've added so far does some work to clarify why I felt it was worthwhile to introduce this new language. I think "combat as sport" vs "combat as war" is a very good match for "embedding" as it pertains to challenges, but it doesn't seem to apply to my discussions about rewards and other topics.

Your other posts in this thread are spot on, by the way. I endorse everything you've said about why embedding is orthogonal to "rules light" vs "system heavy."

[MGuy]

I'm not going to tell you who to engage with but if I were looking for feedback on something I'd be especially interested in the harshest complaints and deepest concerns that people were willing to levy at my idea so I can make sure I'm either ok with them, desire to fix them, or can dismiss them comfortably. If that's not what you're looking for then there's no reason to.

As an example I don't agree with PL posing the idea that you are ascribing 'good' or 'bad' to how embedded a thing is. I can't say for certain one way or another but I'm reading more of a descriptive stance on what is and isn't 'embedded'. I do share other concerns he has though. For example, I have similar concerns about the notion that an item becomes 'less' embedded if you could find it in a shop. This is a similar concern with what I brought up earlier where you seem to say that if players are capable of using a class ability that isn't explicitly related to an encounter or adventure then it is 'less embedded' than if players are just interacting with an encounter or adventure by leveraging contextual situations.

[PhoneLobster]

Ok, "Interactions" could be even worse.

The desert island dungeon is the archetypal un-embedded example. It waits around doing nothing until we're ready for it. We teleport there, loot the place, and teleport home. We don't have to interact with anything else on our way in, and any monsters or treasures we leave behind will just stay there forgotten.

You do nothing to properly wall off your "totally unembedded" example from consequences or call backs. Consequences and call backs are not impossible just because SOME loot or monsters are left behind or because the travel method to get somewhere was convenient (and super flashy and memorable). Events happened, players and characters experienced them, events alone can have consequences and call backs, you have already described such consequences and call backs related to past actions as "embedded". You even went out of your way leave it open that they took some rewards a thing you have said can be embedded.

If they stay in their camp waiting for the PCs to approach, and there are no obstacles preventing the PCs from reaching them, and any escapees or survivors will disappear in the night and never be seen again, then they're effectively sealed off just like the desert island.

Or... not... I mean are the only things that make it story relavant road blocks and revenge assassins? You defined these three examples as things that would be related to things including long term story consequences (which you described in weird terms) surely an orc war camp, oh I don't know, has some significance in that regard, even if the survivors scamper off forever, or you know especially if the survivors scamper off forever.

Most Dms would embed the orc camp at least a little bit. They might use travel times and encounter tables so that when the PCs try to find the camp, they have to interact with some of the other content in the orcs' vicinity. The might even add orc patrols from the camp to the local encounter tables, so that the orcs could turn up while the PCs were on some other adventure.

So I start this thing with, here's the bit where he talks about clearing the camp being a pivotal... no wait travel times. TRAVEL TIMES are a unique contextu... TRAVEL TIMES??? And random encounter tables. No an entry in random encounters tables. Wait. Why are random encounter tables good but random treasure tables bad?

Wait. What if no orc encounters are rolled? Does the adventure become unembedded again? Does the fact they could have been rolled keep it embedded? Is it some sort of quantum state?

And... wait...

If the orc patrols turn up as random encounters on ANOTHER adventure... how the fuck is that contextual to the ongoing story of what is actually happening instead? Especially, very especially, if they don't ever DO the orc encampment adventure. Isn't that very much "they might encounter orcs no matter WHAT adventure they go on, therefore all the adventures are interchangeably unembedded just like they would be if they found cash or swords!".

I'd call these interactions fully embedded when they reach the level of spawning all-new adventures

They cleared the orc camp and found a "teleport to unembedded desert island adventure" scroll. WHUT DO?

If the adventure they spawned by clearing the orc camp could have been spawned by clearing other adventures is that "embeddedness". What if it could be spawned by clearing SOME other adventures?

What if ONLY the orc camp could have spawned the other adventure, but the thing that spawned it was the larger pile of cash the other adventures wouldn't provide needed to buy the treasure map. Does it make a difference if the only reason the PCs went on the mission was to buy the treasure map? What if it wasn't the only reason but they did it anyway? What if they didn't know about the map? What if the GM came up with the idea right at the last moment when giving out the loot? What if he didn't think of it until they went shopping? ... what if they don't buy the map. What if they intended to buy the map but changed their mind?

What if it looks like a really in context link like a princess captive with a mission. But actually secretly the GM had decided any adventure they went on would have had that captive anyway.

But what if it's an ORC princess... that the GM still secretly decided was going to be in all the adventures.

What if it's a quest giving captive that had absolutely no justifiable contextual reason for being there whatsoever like the genie of easy dungeon teleporting, but ONLY this adventure had that npc at the end? What if it was secret until it happened? What if it wasn't secret even before the adventure was selected by the party.

or when you start tracking updates to the fictional situation that aren't actually “adventure content” at all.

So... how do the players. Not the PCs, the players. Know these things happen inside your head outside the game?

Look lets just be generous and assume you tell them. For some reason. Ok. that's nice but even if they like it, even if that's a good thing to do. Uh... so what?

I mean just saying "and then everyone lives happily ever after until next week's adventure" having some minor elaborations is nice but is it ground breaking game design worthy of the dedicated term "embeddedness"? No, FULL embedendess.

Certainly more embedded than "and until next week's adventure when you might use that cool orc sword you got" since the orc sword was less embedded, if not totally unembedded and will appear in the adventure game which at least precludes it from full embeddedness.

If the surviving orcs re-organize under a new leader and go looking for another stronghold to operate out of

OK how is the first example of updated fiction unrelated to the adventure game... "the same adventure becomes available again"?

HOW?

[Orion]

Okay, so, toy model here, but let's imagine a "small sandbox" game where the party repeatedly gets to choose which of two adventures they want to do. If was assume for the moment that the adventures themselves are linear railroads then for our thought experiment, the "game history" is just going to be the sequence of adventures we chose. You could express it as "Goblins-Spiders-Wyverns-Orcs-Necromancer" or just as "ABBAB." Now we can look at that game history and ask ourselves: "does it matter?" Obviously everything that happens in a game makes some amount of difference to the overall experience of the game, everything does contribute to tone and at least potentially contributes to theme, etc., but what I really mean by that is "does it drive outcomes?" Could the way things work out in the end depend on the fact that we played ABBA and not BABA? How likely am I to end up saying "I sure am glad we decided to fight the spiders in the mine instead of the skeletons in the swamp?" or "If only we had fought the skeletons in the swamp instead of the spiders in the mine?" If giant spiders aren't normally available as mounts, and the orc camp turns out to have tall watchtowers packed with archers, then I think the fighter is quite likely to end up saying something like "I'm glad we decided to fight the spiders, because now I can ride my spider mount up the walls to take out these archers." If you can buy a spider mount in town for 50 gold, they probably wouldn't say "I'm glad we decided to fight the spiders," because the fighter probably would have bought a spider mount anyway using the money from the skeleton quest.

Now let's say that there was also a holy sword lying around in that mine full of spiders. Theoretically the fighter player could say "It's a good thing we took that spider quest back in the day" every time they fight a demon or undead for the rest of the campaign, but I think that whether they do end up saying that will depend in part on why they think the sword was there. If they heard rumors before starting the quest that a paladin from the North had gone to clear the mine and never returned, then getting a holy sword was a foreseeable part of the mission. If having the holy sword turns out to be important, taking that mission was a good choice. On the other hand, if the fighter player passed a note to the MC during character creation that said "please give my character a holy sword," and the MC tucked it into the spider mission with no foreshadowing, then I think the player is likely to assume that the MC probably would've put a holy sword in the swamp adventure if the party had chosen that adventure instead. This breaks the link from "fighting the spiders" to "having a holy sword," so the player no longer has a reason to feel good about the decision to go after the spiders.

The same kind of disconnect happens if the players know that the MC is rolling all the treasure up on random treasure tables. If the items are just coming off a table then the reason I have a holy sword is not "because I chose to fight the spiders," it's "because I rolled a holy sword."The link is partially restored if I have a reason to believe that spider mission got more total treasure rolls than the swamp mission would have, but the emotional salience is still probably diminished. Magic items that are available for purchase are un-embedded IFF you both could and would have bought them if you hadn't found them. Let's say I find a holy sword and then later on I have to fight a demon. How grateful am I that I found the holy sword? Well, if there's no way I could afford to buy a holy sword, I'm definitely glad that I found one. Also, if I would never have chosen to buy a holy sword, I'm also going to be glad that I found one. However, if (a) my goal from day one was to save up my money and buy a holy sword, (b) a holy sword costs 50 rubies, and (c) I have 200 rubies in my bank vault, then the fact that I happened to find a holy sword doesn't really matter any more. It is obvious that I would have a holy sword now, even if I had not decided to fight the spiders in the iron mine.

What if I sell the holy sword for money and buy a ring of fire resistance? The next time a dragon breathes fire at me, how likely am I to say "It's a good thing we took the spider mission and not the skeleton one, because I was able to sell the holy sword we found there and buy this ring?" If holy swords are more valuable than most magic items, and I went to the mine because I suspected that there would be a holy sword, and that's the only reason I had enough money to buy the ring, I probably would say that. But if selling the holy sword only raised 40% of the price of the ring, and there are many items of comparable value, then I will probably assume that the skeleton adventure would also have yielded some equivalent vendor trash.

If this entire thing is just a mask off reveal away from being a "magic item shops fundamentally bad" rant I am even more disappointing with your idea than I currently am.

I like magic item shops that have many things you might want but not everything you could want. My personal favorite model atm is to have shop inventories that update based on the crafters in town and the trade goods they have access to. That way if the players do missions that end up improving the local economy they can feel their investment in building up the area pay off in a tangible way.

EDIT: I should probably also say that I don't even have anything against low-embedding games as a player, it's more that as a designer I think the design space for low-embedding fantasy heartbreakers has been pretty well explored. I think there's more room for a heartbreaker to stand out from the crowd by going for a high-embedding design.