D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[bloodtide]

It's an immersion tool. Instead of saying "Bob, how do you deal with the guard?" Or even "Bob, how does Brax the Mighty deal with the guard?" You ask Bob "Brax, how do you deal with the guard?" Keeping the play focused on the character instead of the player.

Well, that makes more sense. With new or clueless players I often have to stress the character is not you and you need to role play the character even if "you the player" don't agree.

It means a couple of things, with the understanding that Dungeon World is EXPRESSLY PC centric:

Think of the players’ characters as protagonists in a story you might see on TV. Cheer for their victories and lament their defeats. You’re not here to push them in any particular direction, merely to participate in fiction that features them and their action.

And it means putting the characters first, before the story and world. It means letting the players do awesome things to that world, instead of being limited by what you think should be possible.

Not a fan of this, but can see why many are as it makes for a "Rule of Cool Game".

 

[iserith]

I can't see this ever happing in my world. There is no way I could be "forced" to go to a place by a "friend" for lunch.

bloodtide is living the sort of life the rest of us can only dream of. Respect.

 

[Faolyn]

I didn't say they were deciding it arbitrarily. But I did infer, from posts upthread, that they were deciding it unilaterally.

The fact that the GM thinks a character is too evil to go on (under a "no evil" rules) doesn't mean that other participants would agree, or are even likely to agree, given the notoriously wide variation in moral opinions found among the people who play RPGs.

If everyone has been warned about the consequences of going evil, then it's fair. It's not something that was suddenly imposed.

Like I said, it's no different than having a line or veil in a game. If a player says "don't do X," and another player deliberately does X repeatedly, then they've broken the game's social contract and it's completely understandable if they get booted.

 

[Faolyn]

Reddit: known for completely true D&D stories.

87,000: Know to be a lot in a hobby of Millions.

In my group of six players, I think I'm the only one who posts to RPG forums of any sort. I'm willing to guess that's the case for many groups. Also, the people who post about murderhoboes but they also have to be the types who are willing to kvetch online about them. There are probably many groups happily consisting entirely of murderhoboes and murder GMs, as well as many groups who are willing to put up with their murderous partymates.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

bloodtide is living the sort of life the rest of us can only dream of. Respect.

I would not--could not--dream of such a thing. It sounds both exhausting and deeply unpleasant, or at least it would be for me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

See? Reasonable Ruler? Now there's a fantastic concept that generally didn't happen in feudalism. Again, largely the point of feudalism: to keep that from happening.

Meh, you mean in Feudal Hollywood. Truthfully, the vast majority of Medieval nobility were probably quite conventional and reasonable by the standards of their various periods (I mean, we are talking about a LARGE span of history here, on the order 5-7 centuries, maybe more depending on how you count). These people had plenty of rules and conventions and laws by which they did things, it wasn't haphazard, arbitrary, etc. However, 'government' was kind of not really a thing, at least it wasn't its OWN thing. Nor was it well-organized, well-funded, etc. in a lot of places and times. So, any quasi-realistic setup is going to probably feature fairly limited, fragmented, and unevenly applied law enforcement. You might well get nailed right off for doing something stupid, and you might just walk away, albeit with the assurance that you better not return to this neck of the woods.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree. So has just about every DM that has responded on this thread.

D&D runs a bit of the gamut here, but FR is definitely fantastical. Flying cities, crashed spaceships, alien creatures that are floating spheres with killer eye stalks. I think D&D covers this.


Obviously using different terminology, but forcing PCs into a no win situation and then punishing them for it is not in the spirit of the game as presented in many places. Hopefully the 2024 edition will get more explicit on this.

For example off the top of my head in the intro to the DMG "our goal isn’t to slaughter the adventurers but to create a campaign world that revolves around their actions and decisions, and to keep your players coming back for more"

Or in Creating a Campaign, Campaign Style (emphasis mine)

What’s the right way to run a campaign? That depends on your play style and the motivations of your players. Consider your players’ tastes, your strengths as a DM, table rules (discussed in part 3), and the type of game you want to run. Describe to the players how you envision the game experience and let them give you input. The game is theirs, too. Lay that groundwork early, so your players can make informed choices and help you maintain the type of game you want to run.​

​

The same fundamental advice is in the DMG. Maybe not using the same verbiage, perhaps it should be improved with the 2024 edition.

It doesn't change anything. Which has been my point - the advice you give is not bad advice. But it is just advice. If you have someone who does not care one way or another about the players, no rules advice is going to change that. The OP has flat out stated that they are going to run the game they run the game. No compromise, refuse to discuss issues with the players, don't actually explain anything to them. They won't even do anything to accommodate the dietary needs of people they invite over for dinner.

You have yet to point out anything that would not also be good advice for a DM in D&D, or at least one good way of running the game. The design philosophy is different. In D&D they don't always tell you how to run your game, they frequently give you options and discuss.

It's also reiterated in places like the intro modules. From Lost Mines of Phandalver (emphasis mine)

Although the DM controls the monsters and villains in the adventure, the relationship between the players and the DM isn’t adversarial. The DM’s job is to challenge the characters with interesting encounters and tests, keep the game moving, and apply the rules fairly.​

​

The most important thing to remember about being a good DM is that the rules are a tool to help you have a good time. The rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM — you’re in charge of the game. Guide the play experience and the use of the rules so that everybody has fun.​

​

The OP ignores the advice given. They didn't talk to the players about style of game because "they don't like talking". They obviously don't care if everyone has fun. Can the 2024 DMG be better? Yes, they've stated as much. Does the advice you've pointed out from other games change anything? I don't see how. It's already there, just not in the same structure or with the same verbiage.

I agree with your thesis, but in DW it goes a bit further, the principles are really effectively RULES, they apply in a very specific and technical sense to the GM's moves, so it becomes extremely substantive 'advice'. Every time the GM makes a move he can (and needs to) ask "which principles is this move embodying?" and "Is it in harmony with the agenda of our game?" I do believe you can incorporate the ideas into other games like D&D in some sense. They're likely to be, as you say, more advisory than they are in AW/DW.

 

[pemerton]

If everyone has been warned about the consequences of going evil, then it's fair. It's not something that was suddenly imposed.

Like I said, it's no different than having a line or veil in a game. If a player says "don't do X," and another player deliberately does X repeatedly, then they've broken the game's social contract and it's completely understandable if they get booted.

I don't think lines and veils normally work under the description "evil".

Nor did I say anything about "fairness".

I simply said that a rule that says If the GM judges a player's character as acting in an evil fashion, the player forfetis the chance to play that character in that game is not a rule that gives the players full control over their PCs.

 

[Mecheon]

I hate digging into single points this deep into a thread, but, this one stuck out at me bad enough I gotta comment on it and hammer on it like a nail.

Again, be a fan of a fictional character? This makes no sense.

how

how in the world does "Being a fan of a fictional character" not make sense?

Do you... Not like fictional characters? Didn't read LotR and want Frodo and Sam to succeed?

That's being a fan. You're not making things easy for them, you're the maker of the Original Character about the poor the Bad Times Juice on them (as everyone who has ever made an original character does) and wanting to see them struggle against it. But just the same, you want to see what they do. Eager to see their next adventure, the next way they mess up and crash into the house of cards around them.

See, in your whole position, there wouldn't have been 'kill their way out of the place'. The guard that let them into the sideroom would have pointed out "Yo, use that Secret Tunnel there to get out" where, upon some sewer running, they'd be greeted at the other end by Mysterious Shadowy Figure who'd be offering them a fun contract from his benefactors so they now get involved in Dark Dealings

 

[Lanefan]

We limit what people can do with their characters the moment we decide we're playing D&D, not Mutants and Masterminds. I don't see limiting to non-evil characters being any different.

We limit what the characters can be when we decide on system. That choice, however, doesn't limit what the players can have those characters do within the parameters of that system. It's a minor difference, but significant here.

An example: the setting has Elves in it, and Elves are available as PCs. It has Ogres in it, but Ogres are by RAW not available as PCs; thus a game-based limit is that my character cannot be an Ogre. The setting doesn't even have Drow in it, thus by both setting-based and game-based limits my character cannot be a Drow.

So the system allows me to play an Elf. Great. Elves in the setting come in all sorts of different-by-individual personalities, outlooks, and beliefs and with all sorts of different-by-individual moral structures and ethical codes; and in theory my Elf can be any of these as neither the system nor the setting tells me otherwise.

Any limitation on which of those near-infinite options I can play and-or how I play them isn't imposed by the system. If my Elf eats what it kills, for example, even if that kill is another Elf, the game doesn't stop me. I mean, I'm personally not one to play a cannibal as a PC but I feel the option should always be open regardless; and if someone else wants to play one then more power to 'em (though if I'm playing another Elf in the party, there might be friction...)