D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Ovinomancer]

There's a third option, which you don't hit here and I think is what the original example was referring to: that the dramatic need to get the ring only just now came up out of nowhere due to something else encountered in the fiction (to wit, another such ring owned by someone else), well after play started and maybe or maybe not related to anything else going on in the campaign.

In other words, it's an unexpected sidebar to the main campaign, or a random interrupt.

I don't see that this is a third option, appears to fit nicely within my second. And sidequests aren't really a feature of DW because there's not a main quest to get aside from.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Strahd is part of the premise. Like if we had a Star Wars game about the Rebels, the Empire is part of the premise.

I feel like we've been around this bush before, and that nothing came of it. I still had a coherent and considered point of view that dealt with this argument and that wasn't refuted, only ignored. I decline to go around it again unless you actually say something new in this space.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I feel like we've been around this bush before, and that nothing came of it. I still had a coherent and considered point of view that dealt with this argument and that wasn't refuted, only ignored. I decline to go around it again unless you actually say something new in this space.

I don't really need to say anything more as the point still stands. I think I ignored your last reply on the topic as it devolved into rather arbitrarily dissecting the concept of premise.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Put your hand on your heart, you genuinely do not know what subset of mechanics me, @Thomas Shey and some others mean? Regardless of whether you agree the nomenclature is accurate? (As I said, I really don't care what it is called.) Could you drop the debate club attitude for a moment?

And I am not questioning whether your immersion works differently than mine. I am sure it does, that is very subjective.

I do. They are any mechanics that place any constraint on the GM that you are not already comfortable with via play of D&D or similarly structured games. You don't have a problem with a GM deciding to add in a forge during play in response to a play query. You have a problem when the system constrains the GM's authority to author things, so long as that restraint is not one you are already comfortable with.

I mean, if we really want to go places where the player "edits" things in perfectly acceptable ways, we just have to look to spells in 5e, but that's going to be met with the tired and uncritical "but magic." Combat is another place where the GM is constrained in their authority over outcomes, but that, again, get's ignored through the uncritical claims of 'that's different, the character has the ability to swing a sword!' while ignoring that characters also have the ability to remember things. It's very obvious what you mean, it's just that the reasons you mean it are arbitrary and uncritical.

I know, I made the same arguments.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't really need to say anything more as the point still stands. I think I ignored you last reply on the topic as it devolved into rather arbitrarily dissecting the concept of premise.

And here I thought you weren't going to get into other's motives! It's a fast moving thread at times, could it be that I didn't see such a response? Although, if you did get into an arbitrary dissection of the concept of premise, I might have skimmed it and passed. That's an interesting description of your response, though.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I do. They are any mechanics that place any constraint on the GM that you are not already comfortable with via play of D&D or similarly structured games. You don't have a problem with a GM deciding to add in a forge during play in response to a play query. You have a problem when the system constrains the GM's authority to author things, so long as that restraint is not one you are already comfortable with.

I mean, if we really want to go places where the player "edits" things in perfectly acceptable ways, we just have to look to spells in 5e, but that's going to be met with the tired and uncritical "but magic." Combat is another place where the GM is constrained in their authority over outcomes, but that, again, get's ignored through the uncritical claims of 'that's different, the character has the ability to swing a sword!' while ignoring that characters also have the ability to remember things. It's very obvious what you mean, it's just that the reasons you mean it are arbitrary and uncritical.

I know, I made the same arguments.

I think the spells are actually a good example, and I think @Cadence kinda went there with the IC quantum collapse power. It is whether the addition/edit is such that the PC could knowingly and causally produce such in the setting. The distinction is perfectly clear. This has really nothing to do with whether one likes having mechanics that grant player authority beyond that or not; that's a matter of preference.

 

[Campbell]

I think the spells are actually a good example, and I think @Cadence kinda went there with the IC quantum collapse power. It is whether the addition/edit is such that the PC could knowingly and causally produce such in the setting. The distinction is perfectly clear. This is really nothing to do with whether on likes having mechanics that grant player authority beyond that or not. That's a matter of preference.

I think we should make a distinction between game mechanics (like in Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel) that oblige a GM to use their authority in certain directed ways and one (like in FATE and Numenera) grant limited authority to players based on some limited currency. They are as different from each other as they are from games that lack teeth on these measures.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think the spells are actually a good example, and I think @Cadence kinda went there with the IC quantum collapse power. It is whether the addition/edit is such that the PC could knowingly and causally produce such in the setting. The distinction is perfectly clear. This has really nothing to do with whether one likes having mechanics that grant player authority beyond that or not; that's a matter of preference.

Right, like I said, "but magic." This is an arbitrary and uncritical bit of reasoning entirely based on "I'm used to this happening, so it's okay."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think we should make a distinction between game mechanics (like in Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel) that oblige a GM to use their authority in certain directed ways and one (like in FATE and Numenera) grant limited authority to players based on some limited currency. They are as different from each other as they are from games that lack teeth on these measures.

Yeah, that's fair. They're on a continuum on the matter.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yeah, that's fair. They're on a continuum on the matter.

Another, "It's a spectrum" when it's really not.