D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[pemerton]

This assumes the only model is "We show up, the scenario's ready, away we go."

<snip>

Basically, I think your model of how games are administered is overly limited.

I didn't assume that. My post, which you quoted, went on to note other models. But the one you mention is pretty clearly the most common way that D&D is played.

its bad if the village girl gets sacrificed by the cult, but its on a whole different level if its your sister.

<snip>

too many GMs are only prone to using relatively hard motivators, and it takes very, very few of those before a player is over it. Add in the ones that keep going to the well too often even with softer ones, and here we are.

My view is that greater clarity on the function - not the in-fiction function, the in-play-at-the-table function - of a whole lot of things - NPCs, framing, consequences, etc - would help here. But the mainstream RPG culture is resolutely hostile to talking about these things with any clarity.

 

[Remathilis]

I should have realized we've had this argument before: you don't mind players unilaterally authoring convenient ways around setting constraints, where I feel said constraints should be honoured by the PCs just like they are by anyone else in the setting.

Not going to go round the houses again on this one.

I'm missing what damage is being done here. A PC tries to use his conveniently placed sister to... Speed a meeting up a week? Is your campaign so time sensitive that the PCs meeting a noble a week sooner is going to derail it? And if it is, there are countless ways to add complications that can delay the request (the lady is out of town attending a relative's funeral, she is too distraught to take this meeting. I tried, sorry) or to drain other resources along with it (I got you a meeting, but the Lady doesn't take them this quickly without some flattery. I suggest an expensive bottle of wine and a small piece of jewelry to make her much more agreeable to listening to your concerns). I mean, has nobody ever heard of "yes, and..." Before?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I didn't assume that. My post, which you quoted, went on to note other models. But the one you mention is pretty clearly the most common way that D&D is played.

I'll buy its more common in D&D than some other places. But note in my post that you originally responded to, my note about people doing the isolated-loner thing is not limited to D&D, nor is it of only recent vintage (and I will absolutely say that heavily pre-prepped adventures as a default have not been the default in D&D for its whole lifespan). I don't think my approach is hard to do that no one ever does it, and frankly, I think an excessive degree of "This is what I prepped, just get out and play it" is not considered a virtue by a lot of people. And being bludgeoned into it is unlikely to make them more tolerant of it.

My view is that greater clarity on the function - not the in-fiction function, the in-play-at-the-table function - of a whole lot of things - NPCs, framing, consequences, etc - would help here. But the mainstream RPG culture is resolutely hostile to talking about these things with any clarity.

Probably true, but players are dealing with the gaming culture they're in, not the one that would be ideal.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm missing what damage is being done here. A PC tries to use his conveniently placed sister to... Speed a meeting up a week? Is your campaign so time sensitive that the PCs meeting a noble a week sooner is going to derail it?

Its not impossible. Its also possible it cuts out other play elements that he considers potentially important. Lanefan runs their campaign rather differently than many people do any more.

And if it is, there are countless ways to add complications that can delay the request (the lady is out of town attending a relative's funeral, she is too distraught to take this meeting. I tried, sorry) or to drain other resources along with it (I got you a meeting, but the Lady doesn't take them this quickly without some flattery. I suggest an expensive bottle of wine and a small piece of jewelry to make her much more agreeable to listening to your concerns). I mean, has nobody ever heard of "yes, and..." Before?

Having heard of it doesn't mean they consider it a desirable technique.

 

[Baron Opal II]

And? What's the problem? The player obviously wants the GM to frame scene in which the PC is inside the manor, or having an audience with her ladyship, or similar. What's wrong with doing that?

From my point of view, the issue is of timing.

If it is established that the sister is a chambermaid of the mayor, and then later the party needs to sneak inside the mansion, that's fine.

If the party needs to sneak inside the mansion, and the heretofore wholly ignored sister suddenly becomes the mayor's chambermaid that is an issue.

Why? It's obviating the problem rather than solving it. It's a bit like forgotten familiar syndrome. It would be far more appropriate to take the otherwise forgotten sister and get her placed in the mansion and then attempt to utilize her presence there.

It's at this point where the sister is employed by the mayor and has some standing of her own that you then have stakes for the use of the sibling. If the party gets caught, she loses her job. (And, we don't need any violence towards her. The loss of trust and prestige is sufficient.)

 

[Remathilis]

Its not impossible. Its also possible it cuts out other play elements that he considers potentially important. Lanefan runs their campaign rather differently than many people do any more.

Having heard of it doesn't mean they consider it a desirable technique.

Such as?

Not being flippant. The party wants to try to meet a noble and they want to use a family member as a contact point. It either works, it works but with a complication, or it doesn't work. If the group decided to sneak into her office and hold her a sword point, who the DM declares they can't because there are play elements he considered more important? Is the ONLY method the DM will allow the predetermined one of waiting a week? That sounds an awful lot like a train whistle, if you ask me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Such as?

Not being flippant. The party wants to try to meet a noble and they want to use a family member as a contact point. It either works, it works but with a complication, or it doesn't work. If the group decided to sneak into her office and hold her a sword point, who the DM declares they can't because there are play elements he considered more important? Is the ONLY method the DM will allow the predetermined one of waiting a week? That sounds an awful lot like a train whistle, if you ask me.

Explaining your meaning clearly is usually better than inflammatory jargon like "train whistle".

 

[Thomas Shey]

Such as?

I have no idea, but his playstyle is considerably different from many you hear anymore, even among most OSR types, so I'm unwilling to say you're not making assumptions he's not.

 

[tetrasodium]

Ahh to have that much time and energy to prep.

im typically only one session ahead of the disaster curve.

Those unused adventures come up eventually rather than going unused. Switching to a digital tabletop saves a lot of time & lets you do things like walk into every session with a truckload of maps plus every map you've ever made beyond that, I probably have a few hundred stored up at this point. From there it's very easy to refluff or insert monsters as needed.

I'm missing what damage is being done here. A PC tries to use his conveniently placed sister to... Speed a meeting up a week? Is your campaign so time sensitive that the PCs meeting a noble a week sooner is going to derail it? And if it is, there are countless ways to add complications that can delay the request (the lady is out of town attending a relative's funeral, she is too distraught to take this meeting. I tried, sorry) or to drain other resources along with it (I got you a meeting, but the Lady doesn't take them this quickly without some flattery. I suggest an expensive bottle of wine and a small piece of jewelry to make her much more agreeable to listening to your concerns). I mean, has nobody ever heard of "yes, and..." Before?

"Yes and" is a comedy/improv thing not the end all be all apex of perfection, it also has a lot of problems when applied to d&d because the players have a much more limited scope of what they can create with the "and" compared to the gm. Not everything a player suggests will fit within the established reality of the world or do anything that might drive the story. "Yes and" is also only one tool that goes alongside "yes but" & "no because".

Spoiler: here's a good improv video on the three

Such as?

Any number of things that dive into a critique of a GM's style & whatever given adventure they happen to be talking about in the example rather than the use of NPCs & ability of the GM to hold something in jeopardy that the PC can't simply shrug off like those NPCs due to needing that thing more than a conveniently placed NPC.

Not being flippant. The party wants to try to meet a noble and they want to use a family member as a contact point. It either works, it works but with a complication, or it doesn't work. If the group decided to sneak into her office and hold her a sword point, who the DM declares they can't because there are play elements he considered more important? Is the ONLY method the DM will allow the predetermined one of waiting a week? That sounds an awful lot like a train whistle, if you ask me.

Why do you assume the GM is railroading? I gave an example scenario earlier here where using the NPC is not the original quest not the secondary quest the GM is building on the fly based on PC attempts to avoid the first using the NPC they want to meet. Using that NPC to meet the NPC is grabbing for the third quest in what could have been a single session that hasn't really accomplished much yet.

 

[pemerton]

I should have realized we've had this argument before: you don't mind players unilaterally authoring convenient ways around setting constraints, where I feel said constraints should be honoured by the PCs just like they are by anyone else in the setting.

I'll reiterate: if the PC has a friend who can leave the side gate open, or have a quiet word with the cardinal, or the other sorts of things that were mentioned upthread, then there is no setting constraint. There's just the GM wanting the PCs to have to wait for a week regardless, for whatever reason.

I'm missing what damage is being done here. A PC tries to use his conveniently placed sister to... Speed a meeting up a week? Is your campaign so time sensitive that the PCs meeting a noble a week sooner is going to derail it? And if it is, there are countless ways to add complications that can delay the request (the lady is out of town attending a relative's funeral, she is too distraught to take this meeting. I tried, sorry) or to drain other resources along with it (I got you a meeting, but the Lady doesn't take them this quickly without some flattery. I suggest an expensive bottle of wine and a small piece of jewelry to make her much more agreeable to listening to your concerns). I mean, has nobody ever heard of "yes, and..." Before?

All I need to add to this is that the bit I've bolded is not a setting constraint. It's a metagame constraint that flows from the GM's plotting of a scenario.

And so if the real reason players can't have their PCs with connections etc is because that will disrupt the GM's control over how the shared fiction unfolds, well we're back with @Hussar's point: why would players bother connecting their PCs with the setting if all that does is reinforce the GM's one-way control over what happens next?