D&D General Arbitrary and Capricious: Unpacking Rules and Rulings in the Context of Fairness

[Micah Sweet]

I don't necessarily think sportsmanship necessarily implies competition. But it does recognize that there are triumphs and setbacks that need to be handled with some grace.

One of the things that I've noticed about Critical Role's players - when Matt's encounters really challenge them and, in particular, kick their asses such as the one where 3 of them are lying dead at the encounter site, you'll see several of them compliment Matt on the good game. This is at a time when they're emotions are probably running their roughest between the excitement and stress of the encounter and the potential to lose characters that have been important to their narrative play. That's sportsmanship. They're acknowledging that it's a game, they're not always going to be winning it, that it's not personal, and they're modeling gracefully accepting when things don't go their way for their viewers.

Did the dead PCs stay dead? As far as I knew from the first season and a half, the only permanently dead PC was Mollymauk.

 

[Yora]

Why is fairness even desireable in an RPG?

What even are examples of unfairness, and why are they a problem?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Or, more concretely, "Why are you assuming the DM is bad?" "Yeah, well why are you assuming the players are bad?" etc.

Well, they are worse-case scenarios, and a game that handles any of them at all well, must be a pretty robust game.
In the best-case scenario of superlative DM and perfect players, any game does well - and no game at all (Freestyle RP) does just as well.

Why is fairness even desireable in an RPG?

Fairness is necessary in almost any game. It's hard to see how that could be questioned. Games where fairness is a problem probably aren't really games, per se, like "war games" (like, RL military exercises) are serious business, not an entertaining pass-time.

If anything, fairness is too low a bar for an RPG. RPGs tend to be cooperative, complex, and nuanced with many options. Balance, not mere fairness, is required of an adequate RPG rule set.

 

[Yora]

Well, with "Balance" I actually do believe that it's a bad thing to have as a goal in an RPG.

With "Fairness" I'm not sure what people mean by the term.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Balance gets talked about more than it gets defined. One definition I've encountered that I find useful is: balance is maximizing the meaningful and viable choices available to the player. In a sense, balance is just a game being honest with you about the the choices it offers. In an imbalanced game, good, viable, marginal, terrible, and wildly broken options will be equally weighted, as if they were all of equal worth in the context of play. In a balanced game, equally weighted choices will be equally viable, superior choices will carry a heavier weight - they'll be more costly in some sense, you get fewer of them in some way, or whatever.

Fair isn't an obscure term, and I don't think it's being used in an unusual way, here... it strikes me as a very low and easy to meet bar, tho.
Like, in the context of an RPG, no matter how badly, say, classes are balanced, as long as every player can choose the one OP class that obviates all others, it's fair - and, y'know, so what? If an imbalanced game goes out of its way to disguise or even promote bad choices (a "trap"), I suppose it might cross the line and be arguably unfair, as well, since there could be whole swaths of players whose preferences predispose them to the trap choices.

 

[MGibster]

Min-maxing is generally a function of building a character.
Rules-lawyering is an activity seen during a session of play.

I am only sometimes annoyed by min-maxers whereas I'm always annoyed by rules lawyers.

 

[MGibster]

Why is fairness even desireable in an RPG?

I think the short answer is that the G in RPG stands for game, and most of us desire fairness in the games we play. Most of us won't enjoy a game that's unfair even if we're the ones benefitting. The long answer is, holy cow, that's actually a pretty deep question. Why is fairness desireable anywhere? Most of us are certainly bothered when we think something is unfair. But why?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Did the dead PCs stay dead? As far as I knew from the first season and a half, the only permanently dead PC was Mollymauk.

Why ask this question? Why is this relevant to the trust Matt Mercer's players have in the fairness of his decisions?

For the record it is harder to resurrect a character in Critical Roles game than in regular 5e.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I am only sometimes annoyed by min-maxers whereas I'm always annoyed by rules lawyers.

Personally I'm only annoyed by rules-lawyers when they are:

A) Wrong, which is always hilarious but a waste of everyone's time.

or

B) Pushing an obvious exploit rather than a legitimately different understanding of a rule.

or

C) Wasting time when I've already ruled or said I will rule later.

But bear in mind my father is a lawyer, my brother is a lawyer, my best friend is a lawyer, my wife has a law degree, and I have worked at law firms most of my adult life (though actually got started in marketing, never going back to that!). So I may be more positively inclined towards legal arguments, so long as they presented politely.

 

[jasper]

excuse me. everyone knows druids explode when they are in metal armour. They do 1d8 per level with 10 radius per level. Naughty Druids leave Waterdeep before being force to wear Jasper's Chain Mail. Con Save with the DC is their save DC.