D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

Crazy Jerome said:

I thought all "forced" movement of allies was always "consent mode" by explicit 4E rule? Or is that what you meant?

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I haven't found an explicit "rule" that makes "unwilling" movement in a PC to PC situation "consent mode." I know that with Organized Play there is a "guideline" about it. But the base rules are silent as far as I know.

That is what I was discussing with Nagol earlier when we were talking about "game-etiquette."



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pemerton said:

Huh? Not in the Forge sense of "narrativism" - it's ultra-heavy GM force! In Forge terms, I'd associated it with High Concept Simulation - it's a tool to keep everyone on the same genre page and focused on "the story".

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Depends. Certainly it was a lousy mechanic, and wasn't evenly applied, even by the book. However, back in the day, it was often the only thing that would (theoretically, anyway) drive character conflicts that addressed "at least one engaging issue or problematic feature of human existence"* beyond surviving the latest monster attack. Framing the argument between say Paladin and Thief was a Narrativist thing. So is arguing about the treatment of prisoners. Its almost the only thing in D&D that ever drove such things (to the extent that it did so, anyway.)

Of course, all these things can and probably would take place in the absence of alignment. That's part of the problem with Narrative play, it often happens fairly naturally, even without rules support. If you want to say that alignment was ineffective at supporting Narrativism and instead usually ended up supporting dysfunctional play, well, I can't argue with you. I'd be happy if alignment died in a fire, myself.

* from here

JamesonCourage said:

snip

Sure, people question your statements, even aggressively, when you say that the game didn't deliver for you. You've qualified appropriately. Later, someone else might say why what you said doesn't match their experience, and you'll say why your experience happened for you. Still all good. Later, someone else will say that something wrecked immersion for them, and you'll say that it doesn't for you. All good.

What happens in this conversation, unfortunately, is that people say "it ruined immersion for me" and then people question it, as Hussar pointed it. "That ruined immersion for you but hit points don't?" These same people get questioned in exactly the same way that you do. These people, who express what is happening for them, get questioned and dismissed and sometimes even attacked in the same way you are when you express what happened for you.
/snip

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That's not quite right though. There's a difference here. Pem says that he gets this specific experience and is questioned on it. But, no one ever seems to take it a step further and ask why he gets this experience with Edition X, and not Y. It's almost always simply a denial that he had the experience in the first place. Pemerton argues that 4e has X, Y and Z and that's why he gets that experience. People usually turn around and argue that X, Y and Z aren't actually in 4e, so he couldn't have had that experience.

OTOH, I'm simply asking a fairly logical question. If X is dissociated for the poster, why isn't Y when there are pretty clear relationships between them. Even to the point where people actually generally agree that Y is dissociated by definition. Why is X bad and Y good? Or rather why isn't Y bad too?

So, no, I'm going to disagree a bit here. There's never anything wrong with asking for clarification of an experience. Why do you feel that way is a perfectly acceptable question. When the other person cannot articulate an answer though, then problems arise because it starts to look an awful lot like, "I don't like X, therefore X is bad" rather than any objective judgement about X.

Hussar said:

There's never anything wrong with asking for clarification of an experience. Why do you feel that way is a perfectly acceptable question. When the other person cannot articulate an answer though, then problems arise because it starts to look an awful lot like, "I don't like X, therefore X is bad" rather than any objective judgement about X.

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Hmm, dropping in on this brief note, because it interests me intellectually like a social experiment why Enworlders do what they do, what is the motivation to "clarify" someone else's experience? Generally speaking, for anyone who feels this is applicable to them, what is the motivation to clarify other peoples' experience for days or weeks or months or perhaps even years? What is your "return on investment" (standard colloquial meaning)?

For example, for me, I'm on Enworld because it's addictive, it's a distraction from work, and it's intellectually stimulating and creative at times. OTOH, I'm quite aware of the "opportunity cost" (standard colloquial meaning). For me, when it comes to debating the fine points of 'dissociation', then my "profit" (the satisfaction of clarifying my experiences to someone on the other side) is very quickly eclipsed by the investment (too much time and effort wrangling over complex issues, preconceived notions, getting thru high passions, "Edition Cold War" baggage, communicative limitations of an online forum, lots of talking past each other, and some people who just don't seem to me to be listening) Does it irk me if someone distills that total experience into a possibly unverifiable conclusion? Absolutely. But maybe it's not my place to invalidate their opinions, plus my irritation is not motivation enough to engage with someone who seeks lengthy "clarification" that seems -- for whatever even-handed reason -- to have no ending in sight.

Just saying...

JamesonCourage said:

What happens in this conversation, unfortunately, is that people say "it ruined immersion for me" and then people question it, as Hussar pointed it. "That ruined immersion for you but hit points don't?" These same people get questioned in exactly the same way that you do. These people, who express what is happening for them, get questioned and dismissed and sometimes even attacked in the same way you are when you express what happened for you.

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This doesn't seem to be quite the same sort of question, though. If someone says "I don't want to wear a shirt - it makes me feel too warm" it's not generally unreasonable to point out "but, dude, you're wearing a neckscarf, hat and gloves!"

Crazy Jerome said:

I thought all "forced" movement of allies was always "consent mode" by explicit 4E rule? Or is that what you meant?

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Not generally, no - there is a simple form of words used in several powers where you can "forced" move a "willing ally". I think that the "Melee 1" range and the lack of this wording suggests that "Get Over Here" is generally meant to be a 'grab and haul' type of action - and, just like the drow darkness power case, I think there's mileage in running it this way and settling issues with it in character. If a group finds it a problem, though, I would suggest houseruling in the "willing ally" wording.

Balesir said:

If someone says "I don't want to wear a shirt - it makes me feel too warm" it's not generally unreasonable to point out "but, dude, you're wearing a neckscarf, hat and gloves!"

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I've been squinting at this analogy for several minutes trying to determine exactly why it feels off. Now I know. A shirt may or may not make people feel warm (and it's not one of the first things you throw off to feel cooler). However, neckscarf, hat and gloves does objectively imply priority and effectiveness of retaining heat. Your analogy objectively ascribes qualities to the secondary articles of clothing and is therefore a biased and unhelpful analogy IMO and does not counter JamesonCourage's point (I wonder if it actually reinforces his point?)

You could have written "If someone says 'I don't want to wear a shirt - it makes me feel too warm' it's not generally unreasonable to point out 'but, dude, you're wearing pants!'" (disclaimer: I haven't thoroughly thought thru this 2nd analogy, it's just an anectode, not a counter-analogy) but for whatever reason you chose the other IMO biased non-sequitur analogy.

IOW, if 'dissocation', immersion, etc. is indeed subjective, then it cuts both ways in play and in debate.

Balesir said:

This doesn't seem to be quite the same sort of question, though. If someone says "I don't want to wear a shirt - it makes me feel too warm" it's not generally unreasonable to point out "but, dude, you're wearing a neckscarf, hat and gloves!"

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Its more like I say I don't like flip flops and you say but dude your wearing sandals. What you fail to see is that while they share some common properties not all sandals are flip flops.

Crazy Jerome said:

I thought all "forced" movement of allies was always "consent mode" by explicit 4E rule?

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As others have posted, I think the answer to this is "no", but I agree with [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION] about table etiquette. Although [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] also has a nice way of adjudicating that particular power.

But in any event, I do think that the use of forced movement for some of these powers is a technical drafting convenience.

Ratskinner said:

If you want to say that alignment was ineffective at supporting Narrativism and instead usually ended up supporting dysfunctional play, well, I can't argue with you. I'd be happy if alignment died in a fire, myself.

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A while ago now I had a thread about this: http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/299362-why-i-dont-like-alignment-fantasy-rpgs.html.

And given that I'm in a self-referring mood, I'll point to this post too.

TL;DR: we agree on alignment.

Balesir said:

Not generally, no - there is a simple form of words used in several powers where you can "forced" move a "willing ally".

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Ally is itself a consent thing. If someone doesn't want to be moved by a given power they can declare themselves to be not an ally for the duration.

Underman said:

Hmm, dropping in on this brief note, because it interests me intellectually like a social experiment why Enworlders do what they do, what is the motivation to "clarify" someone else's experience? Generally speaking, for anyone who feels this is applicable to them, what is the motivation to clarify other peoples' experience for days or weeks or months or perhaps even years? What is your "return on investment" (standard colloquial meaning)?

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One of two things, both of which happen to arise out of the same kind of questions--even if you don't know which one you are likely to get when you start:

• To clarify for me, the poster, other interested participants, or even lurkers, what is being discussed. It's one thing to take a person's testimony of his experience at face value for sake of argument. It's another thing beyond that to gain some insight into that experience and/or the techniques that produce it.
• To give a poster writing in bad faith plenty of rope. For example, this is what happened with a poster that I knew was going to get banned over a year before the ban finally happened.

Unfortunately, because the questions are generally the same, and things can get heated, people can assume the latter intention when the former will do. Manipulating the similarity is a big part of how people troll such discussions.

On the plus side, these discussions spiral in and out of different aspects of the topic, with people dropping in or out all the time. I suppose a lot of people see this a a bug, but for me it a feature.

There's this thread of conversation going on right in this topic between several people that I've said very little about, but I have read carefully every word. I've gone into lurker mode on that particular thread, and haven't needed to ask any questions, because happily I'm getting some of that insight merely watching. Woohoo! Free insight, with no work on my part--merely paying attention.