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

[Ovinomancer]

Snipped the trash...

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.

Per @Umbran, I don't think this opening indicates a viable forward direction.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

So, we're talking about "Trust the GM" and "Never Trust Players" and you respond with... scheduling? Um, okay.

Or is this an attempt to say that the GM is the most important person present so they deserve trust, while players are unnecessary individually so they don't? Struggling to find what you're saying here.

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.

And they're taking you without prior experience. Seems there's an equal chance in your thought experiment for a player to be bad for for that player to find out the GM is bad. So long as we accept the entirely made up numbers, of course.

I'm totally lost how that follows my post.

We're talking about "Trust the GM" and "Never Trust Players." I'm speaking to exactly why I think this happens. It seems you were trying to say it's all just percentages, without examining whys, so I thought I'd do that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

There's a lot more tools in a top-down approach to rein in tunnel vision players and the like, simply because the scope of what they can do is generally more limited. Yeah, someone who completely ignores what everyone else is getting is going to end up having to either be taken in hand or punted in either case, but like a lot of things, there's a lot of milder cases where not being permitted to indulge their worst impulses will get the job done.

That said, there's something to be said for sitting down and going "Look, the game we're going to start gives you a lot of leeway to drive the setting. If you can't do that in a way that serves all the players' purposes and some of mine too, we might as well know that now, because its going to drive the whole thing into the ground, only question is how long."

Of course they can say they will, and genuinely mean it, but not be able to keep themselves in that mode indefinitely. I've got one player I've played with for nearly 50 years now. He's run to being a powergamer the entire time I've gamed with him. In his last decade or so, he's tried to pull back on that much harder. But as soon as he's stressed, whether in-game or out, he tends to drop back to his old habits.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Control means that the player gets to tell the DM that X is true in the game. If the player cannot tell the DM that X is true in the game (obviously beyond simple actions by the character) then the player has no control over that game. Which is a perfectly fine way to play. Trad play generally follows this. But, it means that the player has zero incentive to take any ownership over the game and becomes a passive consumer of the game.

Here is splitting hair. I tend to want to play for immersion, so I like to have the only impact on the gameworld, in play, is the actions of my character. But I tend to really invest in the character and the world... so if someone preferred to play as I do, but completely open to that kind of control outside the actual play at the table (before or after session or via email) - would that be something you are ok with.

I understand completely what you say, and how you play (and I can do that with other games, say the Cypher System), but with D&D/Pathfinder it is not the play experience I want. So this is a question completely driven by my curiosity and the difference in playstyles.


Edit - Sorry for the quote formatting error.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

I've seen plenty who want to play their character as they want, but in the context of not wrecking things for or pissing off each other. How consistent or successful they've been at this various considerably, of course, but the kind of complete self-centered, don't-care-about-the-other-players player has seemed rare in anyone I've gamed with in a long, long time.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Do you solely GM? When you play, do your instincts about what makes up a reasonably balanced yet challenging game vanish? Aren't many players also GMs and vice versa? Is it a quality of the role in the game that causes the phenomenon, or is it a quality of the person?

I GM quite a lot, but I also play. I don't tend to look at the games I play in as somehow less "mine". I'm responsible for how those games go. I'm not solely responsible. But I'm not solely responsible for how the games I GM go, either.

Perhaps it's the sharing of responsibility for the game that makes players less likely to scramble for every competitive advantage? Perhaps withholding the ability to have input on the game makes folks desperate for any bit they're allowed?

I don't know.... there seem to be some odd correlations here.

I do view games I'm not running as less "mine", but that mostly manifests in how much effort I put in, not how much I pay attention to what I'm doing is impacting other people. I'm far more haphazard as a player than a GM, but I don't entirely abandon my responsibility to everyone else.

 

[Thomas Shey]

What else is a player supposed to do other than play their character(s)?

Play them with other people in mind too, and not just themselves. Its not that hard unless you are utterly unwilling to pay attention to anything outside the character POV (or even, in many cases, from within them--not every character has to be a self-centered jerk, either. These other characters are their companions and sometimes friends too, after all).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've seen plenty who want to play their character as they want, but in the context of not wrecking things for or pissing off each other. How consistent or successful they've been at this various considerably, of course, but the kind of complete self-centered, don't-care-about-the-other-players player has seemed rare in anyone I've gamed with in a long, long time.

I didn't say they don't care. I said they care when it's in their character's best interest. Often it is. When a player has authority outside their PC, however, there will be many opportunities to put forward or protect their character, personally, and in my experience most players are not going to use that power to enhance the story at their PC's expense.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I didn't say they don't care. I said they care when it's in their character's best interest.

That's not caring about how it impacts other players, so it doesn't change my post materially. Its not about your character alone; its about the humans around the table. Only caring about your character is how you get to the infamous "I'm just playing in character" excuse, and its been an excuse for decades; you developed the character's personality, you interpret how they respond to things, so you don't get off the hook for being jerks to the other people around the table and I don't have much sign that most people try to.

This isn't about story per se; how much people care about that varies considerably. This is about being considerate to other players.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's not caring about how it impacts other players, so it doesn't change my post materially. Its not about your character alone; its about the humans around the table. Only caring about your character is how you get to the infamous "I'm just playing in character" excuse, and its been an excuse for decades; you developed the character's personality, you interpret how they respond to things, so you don't get off the hook for being jerks to the other people around the table and I don't have much sign that most people try to.

This isn't about story per se; how much people care about that varies considerably. This is about being considerate to other players.

You can not be a jerk at the table, while still focusing your RP efforts on your PC's interests. Its a spectrum. I just think most players put their PC first in most circumstances, and PC authority games make this more likely.