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

[pemerton]

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.

To me, there seem to be two issues here.

One of them is technical: most versions of D&D have no way of answering the questions Is my sisters a chamber maid of the mayor? Can she leave the side gate open for us? except by ad hoc table consensus. (Exceptions: AD&D OA Yakuza class; 4e skill challenge with a Streetwise check.) And ad hoc table consensus can have an element of instability as a method of establishing the shared fiction.

Still, the issue of settling where a PC's sister works, which - given the lack of mobility of employment in the typical D&D setting - seems like it will only ever come up once or twice - doesn't seem to me all that destabilising, even if it does require consensus to be reached.

The second issue is the one that puzzles me: I don't see how it actually hurts play for the players to get into the mayor's house via a side gate the sister leaves open. At the table, discussing all that and sorting it out probably takes 10 to 20 minutes, which is not wildly different from how long it would take to resolve a reaction roll to a bribe, or a thief's Climb Walls check followed by throwing a rope over for their friends. Thinking of the family member possibility doesn't seem any less clever, or any less interesting, than thinking of sneaking in over the wall. @Remathilis already pointed out that if the issue is resource consumption, the GM can easily frame it so the sister needs a pay-off of some kind roughly equivalent to whatever other resources might be consumed (for PCs greater than 1st level, in most versions of D&D, the resources to sneak over a wall are pretty cheap).

To me, it smacks of a GM determined to stick to their preconception of how play should unfold. Which takes me, again, back to @Hussar's point: under those circumstances, what reason do players have to take the setting seriously as anything other than a complicated puzzle-box? And if it's a complicated puzzle-box, why would they bother thinking about family, friends etc for their PCs?

 

[Arilyn]

And once the PC establishes the sister's job or home, it's done. It's not like the sister can now be working as a sailor, or married to the high druid or whatever.

 

[pemerton]

Not everything a player suggests will fit within the established reality of the world or do anything that might drive the story.

The first disjunct is a red herring. No one is suggesting that it contradicts the established fiction for the PC to have a sister, or for that sister to work for the mayor.

The second goes exactly to @Remathilis's point about the GM wanting to control the fiction. The player has an idea about how to "drive the story" - the PC's sister leaves a side gate open - and the GM objects because they wanted the fiction to be different.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To me, there seem to be two issues here.

One of them is technical: most versions of D&D have no way of answering the questions Is my sisters a chamber maid of the mayor? Can she leave the side gate open for us? except by ad hoc table consensus. (Exceptions: AD&D OA Yakuza class; 4e skill challenge with a Streetwise check.) And ad hoc table consensus can have an element of instability as a method of establishing the shared fiction.

Still, the issue of settling where a PC's sister works, which - given the lack of mobility of employment in the typical D&D setting - seems like it will only ever come up once or twice - doesn't seem to me all that destabilising, even if it does require consensus to be reached.

The second issue is the one that puzzles me: I don't see how it actually hurts play for the players to get into the mayor's house via a side gate the sister leaves open. At the table, discussing all that and sorting it out probably takes 10 to 20 minutes, which is not wildly different from how long it would take to resolve a reaction roll to a bribe, or a thief's Climb Walls check followed by throwing a rope over for their friends. Thinking of the family member possibility doesn't seem any less clever, or any less interesting, than thinking of sneaking in over the wall. @Remathilis already pointed out that if the issue is resource consumption, the GM can easily frame it so the sister needs a pay-off of some kind roughly equivalent to whatever other resources might be consumed (for PCs greater than 1st level, in most versions of D&D, the resources to sneak over a wall are pretty cheap).

To me, it smacks of a GM determined to stick to their preconception of how play should unfold. Which takes me, again, back to @Hussar's point: under those circumstances, what reason do players have to take the setting seriously as anything other than a complicated puzzle-box? And if it's a complicated puzzle-box, why would they bother thinking about family, friends etc for their PCs?

Many DMs dislike players creating changes in the fiction outside of their own character's actions. Creating a sibling to help with an in-gane problem at the time you need it is an example of this. It's a playstyle choice, and making it does not automatically mean that the players have no reason to care about the fiction.

 

[pemerton]

Many DMs dislike players creating changes in the fiction outside of their own character's actions. Creating a sibling to help with an in-gane problem at the time you need it is an example of this.

I understand this.

It's a playstyle choice, and making it does not automatically mean that the players have no reason to care about the fiction.

This particular line of discussion in the thread began with a complaint that players make PCs who are "men with no name", who have no connections to the setting, etc.

A GM who makes the playstyle choice of insisting on unilateral control over every aspect of the fiction other than the PCs' bodies, but who then complains that players won't connect their PCs to other parts of the fiction, strike me as having made their own bed to lie in.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I understand this.

This particular line of discussion in the thread began with a complaint that players make PCs who are "men with no name", who have no connections to the setting, etc.

A GM who makes the playstyle choice of insisting on unilateral control over every aspect of the fiction other than the PCs' bodies, but who then complains that players won't connect their PCs to other parts of the fiction, strike me as having made their own bed to lie in.

There's a difference between creating a background that later sees play, and creating a piece of background specifically to overcome an obstacle in game.

 

[Lanefan]

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?

The sister-and-meeting is a trivial example of what I see as a bigger issue: players being able to out-of-the-blue author their way around problems and inconveniences in the fiction.

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?

Why should I need to add further complications when there's one already present; that being the week's delay?

And who knows - if the PCs are in that big a hurry or they feel their message is that important they might look to bribe someone to get them in early, or pay someone further ahead in line to let them take that spot, or whatever. But in any case it would involve at least a) an uncertain negotiation and b) a cost; as opposed to a fait-accompli for free.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I thought manipulating the fiction to achieve a desired goal was the highest form of play?
Also...
I do have a suggestion for the, "My character's relative is on the inside" situation. The DM should say yes but then run a spin off session where your players play as the relative (and maybe a couple of their friends) as they do the inside work that the PC asked for. It worked for the Spider-Man video game. I'm sure your group won't mind playing a session as a bunch of level one commoners!

 

[pemerton]

There's a difference between creating a background that later sees play, and creating a piece of background specifically to overcome an obstacle in game.

In this context, I don't think there is much of a difference.

Suppose that the player, in advance, creates a background with a sister who works for the mayor. It seems to me that (i) if that GM's player would object to the just-in-time narration of a sister who will leave the side gate open, because that would ruin the GM's control over the pacing and sequence of fictional events, then (ii) that same GM is unlikely to set up a situation in which the players pre-authored background enables the PC to benefit from having a sister who works for the mayor and hence can leave the side gate open.

I guess there's also a (iii): the GM sets up a situation in which the only way to get into the mayor's house is for the sister to leave the side gate open. In which case we're back to setting-as-puzzlebox.

My very strong advice, to any GM who actually wants the player to hook their PCs into the setting by way of family members, friends, etc, is this: relax your unilateral control over the setting.

 

[Hussar]

See, but, that's the thing. The Backgrounds in 5e already specifically allow for this sort of thing. If I have a character with a Noble background, that "someone lets me in" becomes automatic.

IOW, the presumption here is the important bit of the scenario is seeing that person in the house. How you get there isn't really a big deal. And, allowing players to author things like this forces them to think about their relationships within the setting. Now they have a sister that works in that house.

Since it's not a problem for me to declare that at character generation - I have a sister that works in the mayor's house would be a perfectly acceptable thing for a player to put in their background - the only complaint here is timing.

The DM wants the players to overcome the obstacle in a prescribed manner and only that prescribed manner and all other methods are off the table. It's certainly a traditional approach to the game, but, it leads to players not bothering to have any real background since, "My sister works in THAT house" is never, ever going to actually come up in game if determined at chargen.