D&D General Is power creep bad?

[Micah Sweet]

Because "trust" is a process, not a toggle?

Because "just trust me, it's for your own good" is one of the least trustworthy things people can say?

Because I play online games where I don't know the DM well, due to being extremely shy?

Because "fair" is in the eye of the beholder, and there's several things I think are completely and totally unfair that others think are so acceptable they shouldn't be discussed in advance (ear seekers, or cloakers, or rust monsters, or any of dozens of other "gotcha" monsters deployed out of context specifically to dick over ignorant players who have been "doing too well")?

Because so many DMs out there reserve the right to do things that violate trust, like fudging rolls or retconning established facts or secretly changing a creature's stats mid-fight (again, "trust me, it's for your own good, that's why I won't ever let you find out I do it!")

Trust is not given. It is earned. Responding to "DMs need to earn my trust" with "why do you play at a table where you don't trust the DM?" is putting the cart before the horse. Even if I already know the DM as a person beforehand, unless I actually see them perform as a DM, I have no basis on which to trust them as a DM. They must earn that trust. You might as well say "why do you eat at a restaurant you don't trust?" in response to someone saying they want their restaurants to pass inspection before they'll eat there.

How can you learn to trust a DM when the rules shackle them? If you handcuff someone you'll never know if they'd be safe without them.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

How can you learn to trust a DM when the rules shackle them? If you handcuff someone you'll never know if they'd be safe without them.

Handcuff? Really?

The hyperbole about rules that actually work is staggering. I give examples of things that actually go wrong. Others invent ridiculous canards. I'm not going to be swayed by such arguments, and you really should already know that.

Maybe I should have couched the question this way: Why are you playing with someone you distrust?

I don't. But doing things "for my own good," especially if done in secret and covering it up? Or "reserving the right" to use tools like ear seekers etc. (you know, monsters that actually exist and which were used, sometimes even by their original creator, specifically for the purpose of screwing over players)? That's going to create distrust.

Before I see someone in action, I am cautious. People have mistreated me plenty in my life. I always try to keep an open mind, but I also have to be on the lookout for jerks or users. I've been burned by both.

Aside from that, though, is this simple fact: the rules are NOT going to protect you from a bad GM in any case. Tons of rules are just going to exacerbate the problem, in fact. There is no authority to appeal to for fair adjudicating of the rules besides the GM.

They don't work to "protect" anyone. What they do is push conversations into the open, and make cards-face-up play functional.

Also, a lot of people make this comparison of gaming and restaurants and I don't think it is apt at all. In fact, I would go so far as to say that maybe some of the reasons people have negative gaming experiences is because they go into them with an attitude similar to that they are going to pay for a meal. Maybe if folks thought of it more like a dinner party, they will recognize their own responsibility in not only theirs but everyone else's enjoyment.

I don't see why it's not apt. I'm investing my time, my interest, and possibly (depending on the table, the game being played, etc.) my money as well. When I do so, I'm making myself vulnerable in order to experience something desirable. That sounds quite a bit like investing your money and making yourself vulnerable (to the possibility of foodborne illness, poor cooking skills, poor ingredients or service, unstated allergens, etc.), in order to get the chance at a great meal without having to cook it yourself (perhaps using skills you don't personally possess, like hand-making ramen noodles).

A dinner party has no expectation beyond the party itself. There is no commitment, and one can depart at essentially any time without losing anything, except perhaps giving minor offense. It doesn't take six months to find out that you had been expecting real beef tacos and finding out that less than 50% of the meat was actually beef. No dependencies grow up between the members of that party, and if the partygoers find the host's offerings not to their liking, they can quite easily choose to do something else without totally abandoning the party entirely. There are tons of ways a dinner party looks nothing like a D&D game—at least as many as the ways a D&D game looks nothing like a restaurant.

This sounds an awful lot like "respect" in the way that some people say "respect must be earned" (never minding the fact that people should be, at some level, automatically treated with respect just for being).

So you'd give $100 to a random person on the street whom you'd never met simply because they told you they would get it back to you in a week?

Respect is something you give automatically, I agree. Trust is something built up as you learn who someone is and how they behave. Being respectful even to the people you hate is a mark of great personal integrity, and respecting people you don't know is basic courtesy. Immediately trusting people whom you know essentially nothing about is a mark of extreme naïveté, and trusting folk you dislike is often very unwise.

Trouble is, how do you give someone a chance to earn trust without putting at least some trust in them? How do you act in a trustworthy manner yourself if you won't invest trust in them?

You speak frankly with them. Discussion, open and frank, avoiding tacit implications and reliance on a social contract, enables the initial development of trust: it allows you to observe how people behave and what they are willing (or unwilling) to do. Hence why rigor and transparency are useful; if we agree to abide by external things that both sides already know reasonably well, trust is facilitated, rather than demanded, because we already know where we stand.

On the restaurant analogy - do restaurants need to earn your trust too? How do they do so without you trusting them enough to eat at them?

Absolutely. It's called passing inspection: being held to an independent standard that both sides can know and agree to. Would you eat at a restaurant that proudly told you they refused to let food inspectors examine their process, ingredients, and facilities because they know better than any dumb laws or bureaucrats what things they need to do to give their customers a good experience?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Handcuff? Really?

The hyperbole about rules that actually work is staggering. I give examples of things that actually go wrong. Others invent ridiculous canards. I'm not going to be swayed by such arguments, and you really should already know that.


I don't. But doing things "for my own good," especially if done in secret and covering it up? Or "reserving the right" to use tools like ear seekers etc. (you know, monsters that actually exist and which were used, sometimes even by their original creator, specifically for the purpose of screwing over players)? That's going to create distrust.

Before I see someone in action, I am cautious. People have mistreated me plenty in my life. I always try to keep an open mind, but I also have to be on the lookout for jerks or users. I've been burned by both.


They don't work to "protect" anyone. What they do is push conversations into the open, and make cards-face-up play functional.


I don't see why it's not apt. I'm investing my time, my interest, and possibly (depending on the table, the game being played, etc.) my money as well. When I do so, I'm making myself vulnerable in order to experience something desirable. That sounds quite a bit like investing your money and making yourself vulnerable (to the possibility of foodborne illness, poor cooking skills, poor ingredients or service, unstated allergens, etc.), in order to get the chance at a great meal without having to cook it yourself (perhaps using skills you don't personally possess, like hand-making ramen noodles).

A dinner party has no expectation beyond the party itself. There is no commitment, and one can depart at essentially any time without losing anything, except perhaps giving minor offense. It doesn't take six months to find out that you had been expecting real beef tacos and finding out that less than 50% of the meat was actually beef. No dependencies grow up between the members of that party, and if the partygoers find the host's offerings not to their liking, they can quite easily choose to do something else without totally abandoning the party entirely. There are tons of ways a dinner party looks nothing like a D&D game—at least as many as the ways a D&D game looks nothing like a restaurant.


So you'd give $100 to a random person on the street whom you'd never met simply because they told you they would get it back to you in a week?

Respect is something you give automatically, I agree. Trust is something built up as you learn who someone is and how they behave. Being respectful even to the people you hate is a mark of great personal integrity. Immediately trusting people whom you know essentially nothing about is a mark of extreme naïveté.


You speak frankly with them. Discussion, open and frank, avoiding tacit implications and reliance on a social contract, enables the initial development of trust: it allows you to observe how people behave and what they are willing (or unwilling) to do. Hence why rigor and transparency are useful; if we agree to abide by external things that both sides already know reasonably well, trust is facilitated, rather than demanded, because we already know where we stand.


Absolutely. It's called passing inspection: being held to an independent standard that both sides can know and agree to. Would you eat at a restaurant that proudly told you they refused to let food inspectors examine their process, ingredients, and facilities because they know better than any dumb laws or bureaucrats what things they need to do to give their customers a good experience?

You were responding to someone extolling the virtues of save-or-die, level drain, and similar effects. Your response seemed to indicate that your problem with these mechanics is that you don't trust DMs to use them fairly, so you'd prefer to play in a system where they're not allowed at all. That's your right, but I strongly disagree with it (top to bottom really), and said as much.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You were responding to someone extolling the virtues of save-or-die, level drain, and similar effects. Your response seemed to indicate that your problem with these mechanics is that you don't trust DMs to use them fairly, so you'd prefer to play in a system where they're not allowed at all. That's your right, but I strongly disagree with it (top to bottom really), and said as much.

Hadn't realized that an absence of SoD, level drain, etc. was all you needed to handcuff the DM. Man, DMs are such abused, beleaguered creatures, aren't they? Will no one think of the poor DMs?

 

[CleverNickName]

Oh yes, handcuffed by the rules. As the Dungeon Master, I am constantly finding myself constrained by those rigorous, inflexible, immutable rules. If only the developers would have created a way for me to adjust them as needed...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hadn't realized that an absence of SoD, level drain, etc. was all you needed to handcuff the DM. Man, DMs are such abused, beleaguered creatures, aren't they? Will no one think of the poor DMs?

I sense sarcasm...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I sense sarcasm...

That's correct, yes. I find it honestly hilarious when folks act like the participant with literally phenomenal cosmic power within the play-space is somehow chained and suffering. DMs, in some cases literally, hold all the cards. I would laugh for similar (not identical, but similar) reasons at a casino complaining about how the laws hem them in and make it so hard for them to turn a profit when all these greedy players keep doing horrible things like using their brains to estimate probabilities.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Oh yes, handcuffed by the rules. As the Dungeon Master, I am constantly finding myself constrained by those rigorous, inflexible, immutable rules. If only the developers would have created a way for me to adjust them as needed...

Especially in an edition where 80% of the rules are 'ask your DM'.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's correct, yes. I find it honestly hilarious when folks act like the participant with literally phenomenal cosmic power within the play-space is somehow chained and suffering. DMs, in some cases literally, hold all the cards. I would laugh for similar (not identical, but similar) reasons at a casino complaining about how the laws hem them in and make it so hard for them to turn a profit when all these greedy players keep doing horrible things like using their brains to estimate probabilities.

You're the one who said you don't want certain effects in the game.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It made certain types of monsters something you just didn't want to get into melee with, forcing more creative solutions when they came up.

Assuming you know/recognize the monster.