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

[overgeeked]

I've played a lot of games with shared authority and when a player does something that breaks the spirit of the game, they know it. Other players letting them know it has never been a problem. Shared authority means that players will speak up. Frankly, It doesn't happen often, but when it has the player sheepishly admits their over reach and we move on.

Actually, players in these games tend to be very creative in complicating their lives, not looking for easy ways out constantly. The "I win" button is really not a problem. If it is you have disruptive players or players who aren't getting into the proper spirit of play. If it's a game designed for shared authority, the tightness of the rules and overall structure will not allow "I win" buttons anyway.

Honestly, I’m glad you’ve had that experience. I wish I could find players interested in any game besides D&D. And even when giving non-D&D games a try, the players still play it like it’s D&D. Fate (SotC, Core, Atomic Robo, Fate of Cthulhu, etc). Powered by the Apocalypse (Monster of the Week, Spirit of ’77, Uncharted Worlds, Masks, Cartel, etc). Cortex (Smallville, MHR, Leverage, Prime, etc). Fiasco (oof). Primetime Adventures. Even Doctor Who. Every time. Every game. It’s the same thing. Not the same players. But there’s always at least one, often more than one, usually about half the players. They’re just there to break things. Mostly the game. It gets really, really old.

 

[Helldritch]

Snipped the trash...

What game would you care to learn about? PbtA games? FitD games? Burning Wheel? My Life with Master? Dogs in the Vineyard? All of these are different games, that do things different around some of the same concepts. All structure authority differently, and all play very differently from D&D. And none of them should be remotely considered "free form." Some of these are some of the tightest mechanically driven games I've seen (Blades in the Dark has some truly wonderfully mechanics that integrate and reverberate throughout play).

Now you're talking. It is just sad that it is in the last paragraph that you actually opened up.
Yes to all of them. What I want to know is how different are they from FATE?
Do players still take turns at being the allmighty?
How is actually sharing responsibility so much better than having one person to coordinate everything?
How do you avoid the "I Win!" button, because other posters with much more experience, and much recent experience have seen it too. And not just one/once.

 

[Helldritch]

Honestly, I’m glad you’ve had that experience. I wish I could find players interested in any game besides D&D. And even when giving non-D&D games a try, the players still play it like it’s D&D. Fate (SotC, Core, Atomic Robo, Fate of Cthulhu, etc). Powered by the Apocalypse (Monster of the Week, Spirit of ’77, Uncharted Worlds, Masks, Cartel, etc). Cortex (Smallville, MHR, Leverage, Prime, etc). Fiasco (oof). Primetime Adventures. Even Doctor Who. Every time. Every game. It’s the same thing. Not the same players. But there’s always at least one, often more than one, usually about half the players. They’re just there to break things. Mostly the game. It gets really, really old.

You've played them all? And you have seen the "I win" button every single time?
Geez, either you are unlucky or these systems do require exemplary players (as I suspected).
I am really interested in giving Free Form (or whatever the systems are called) a go, but I fear the I win button syndrome.
Or maybe, for the first time in 40 years, I am getting the DM burn out on D&D...

 

[overgeeked]

You've played them all?

Run them all at least once. Played in fewer, but still saw players out to win and didn’t care about breaking the game while doing it.

And you have seen the "I win" button every single time?

Yep. Every time.

Geez, either you are unlucky or these systems do require exemplary players (as I suspected).

Could be both.

I am really interested in giving Free Form (or whatever the systems are called) a go, but I fear the I win button syndrome.

These games are not freefom. Freeform is a particular style where there’s usually no DM, but they have rules to prevent abuses like “cannot affect a PC without the player’s consent” and “no controlling other players’ characters”.

Shared authority works best, at least in my experience, when it’s a group of DMs. At least that’s when it’s come the closest to actually working. Aside from my fiasco with Fiasco…which was with an all-DM group. The mostly D&D DM just decided to have his character start slicing bits off the other PCs. When called on it he picked up the book and told us to find the passage that said he couldn’t do that. The book explicitly say the spotlight character in the scene is in charge. Period. We never touched it again.

Or maybe, for the first time in 40 years, I am getting the DM burn out on D&D...

Try other games. Play some. Seth Skorkowsky did a video on DM burn out. His channel’s great, and useful for most games, despite being mostly focused on Call of Cthulhu.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You made it just a few sentences before you fell down, again. You're continuing to use 'free form RPG' even though it's been challenged and shown how it's dismissive (too wide a bin), and, I assume, continuing to do so intentionally, which means you've moved into intentional dismissal. Okay. Given that there are quite number of different games that have quite a few different authority structures, the statement you've made is also factually wrong -- there is no most recent incarnation even if the 'free form' is overlooked.

You're very much doubling down on championing your ignorance of these things.

That seems to be your experience, and I'm sorry that is so. It's not mine. Here's the thing, though -- you're conceptualizing this only inside the framework of what you know -- that the GM has a puzzle and the player is short circuiting it with this stuff. If you use this kind of approach, though, the GM shouldn't be offering puzzles, but instead things that drive directly at who the PC is and makes them make choices there. This is the huge delta in play -- it's not GM puzzlebox play, it's legit following the play to see what happens. I alluded to this upthread when I noted the complaints about "I win buttons" in relation to getting an audience with the mayor that the GM had decided would take a week. That's not an I win, it's just not what the GM preconceived would happen. If that was the actual challenge, well, weird. We still have plenty of play, here, where now that the audience is achieved, you can get to play. There's nothing that solving a problem means that there's no more problems -- every GM has that game's equivalent of infinite dragons: you can always just go to the next problem.

Pardon, but you haven't see anything at all with regards to the games I'm talking of. You don't have that experience. You've said so before. If, instead, you mean D&D here, yeah, there's only so much you can do within a given authority structure. 4e changed it a bit and was blasted for it.

It's not really existent, and the dismissal is largely in the continued claims that you have experience when everything you're saying points to not having that experience.

And it's okay to not have experience, and even to not care about it. Making normative statements that display the total lack of that experience, though, should be pointed out. And your continued doubling down on this, instead of stopping to consider that maybe, just maybe, you might not have that experience, is also pretty dismissive along the "my assumptions are clearly more correct that whatever you say, even though you have experience."

What game would you care to learn about? PbtA games? FitD games? Burning Wheel? My Life with Master? Dogs in the Vineyard? All of these are different games, that do things different around some of the same concepts. All structure authority differently, and all play very differently from D&D. And none of them should be remotely considered "free form." Some of these are some of the tightest mechanically driven games I've seen (Blades in the Dark has some truly wonderfully mechanics that integrate and reverberate throughout play).

Would you call them "narrative"? Do they revolve around mechanics designed to facilitate a particular brand of storytelling? Honest question.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The GM's I've had are typically people I've known as players or had good recommendations of as GMs. We're much more likely to pick up a first time players or players we've never played with before than a GM we're flying blind on.

As an aside - probability wise with 1 GM and 4 players, assuming each has the same chance of being way out there bad, you're much more likely to have at least one atrocious player at the table than an atrocious GM. (Say it's 10% chance of bad, that's 10% chance of bad GM and 34.39% chance of at least one bad player. Even if it's 25% chance of bad for GM and 10% chance of bad for each player, that's still 25% chance of awful GM vs. 34.39% of at least one awful player).

So, don't Trust the GM until the prove they're not of the 10%. This seems to track with Don't Trust Players until they Prove Themselves.

The thing is, most people that pay Trust the GM are GMs, so that's a bit of self dealing. Trust Me it says. My problem with this is the simultaneous argument that players cannot be Trust with anything until they prove that they submit to the GM sufficiently. Because, honestly, people making this argument are also likely to view players that do not properly genuflect to the GM as problem players. And that's a whole bunch of blaming everyone else while never having to look at yourself. At some point you need to consider the common denominator.

To me, everyone at the table deserves to be treated with respect, and exhalations of Must Trust GM coupled with Don't Trust Them isn't it.

 

[tetrasodium]

You've played them all? And you have seen the "I win" button every single time?

I've run or played most of the systems & a lot of the subsystem games that overgeeked mentioned & a lot of them were also semiopen at least once (ie one of the game nights at a FLGS) & the player trying to use shared authority mechanics to trigger an "I win" button is so common that it often requires the gm and/or empowered players to work outside the rules to constrain problem players by doing things like simply nulling the cost to counter it or awarding extra system appropriate doodads.

Geez, either you are unlucky or these systems do require exemplary players (as I suspected).

the bar for what a player needs to live up to is much higher & the bar for where borderline behavior becomes problematic is much lower. I don't see his experience as at all unusual though

 

[Campbell]

I don't think games like Apocalypse World or the way I run traditional games require exemplary players. It does require players who are effective communicators, effective collaborators, and who have a group first mentality. I think that's just as true for a game where players do not have any authority over the setting. Like as long as people have the freedom to choose what their characters do they can be just as disruptive. Like if you are never willing to take a backseat, back someone else's play or do what's good for the game even if your character suffers I don't really want to share a table with you. I likely would not want to play team sports or video games with you either.

That's not exemplary though. That's just the bare minimum.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think games like Apocalypse World or the way I run traditional games require exemplary players. It does require players who are effective communicators, effective collaborators, and who have a group first mentality. I think that's just as true for a game where players do not have any authority over the setting. Like as long as people have the freedom to choose what their characters do they can be just as disruptive. Like if you are never willing to take a backseat, back someone else's play or do what's good for the game even if your character suffers I don't really want to share a table with you. I likely would not want to play team sports or video games with you either.

That's not exemplary though. That's just the bare minimum.

Yeah, I have rarely met any group of players where even a significant minority have a group first mentality. Mostly they want to play their character how they want, as successfully as possible. Cooperation happens when it suits the individual to do so, and making a great story for the group over the individual is not a priority.

The type of gamer you're describing is an entirely different species in my experience.

 

[Cadence]

So, don't Trust the GM until the prove they're not of the 10%.

Setting up a game typically involves a GM making a pitch to four to six players, and if successful, we block out a night of the week for at least a couple months. If a one player or another can't make a night here or there for whatever reason (sick? work needs? doesn't click and we boot them?) then we can go on that night with the GM and three players, and hopefully the fourth player will be back. If the GM can't make a single night we typically bag it and catch up on work or sleep. If the GM is out for good, we go back to the drawing board.

This seems to track with Don't Trust Players until they Prove Themselves.

I mean, my default estimate in the example was that a randomly selected DM had the same percentage chance of being bad as a randomly selected player. And, like I said, we take players that we haven't had experience with as gamers before.

The thing is, most people that pay Trust the GM are GMs, so that's a bit of self dealing. Trust Me it says. My problem with this is the simultaneous argument that players cannot be Trust with anything until they prove that they submit to the GM sufficiently. Because, honestly, people making this argument are also likely to view players that do not properly genuflect to the GM as problem players. And that's a whole bunch of blaming everyone else while never having to look at yourself. At some point you need to consider the common denominator.

To me, everyone at the table deserves to be treated with respect, and exhalations of Must Trust GM coupled with Don't Trust Them isn't it.

I'm totally lost how that follows my post.