D&D General Styles of D&D Play

[FrogReaver]

Except that this is a choice. Vehicles exist. Thus he could choose to be able to travel further and faster if he wished.

Your analogy only works if all vehicles no longer exist.

Everyone is being supported because there are no longer any cars or vehicles of any sort is a much tougher row to hoe.

I’m scratching my head at how you got to that erroneous of a conclusion.

 

[Hussar]

Y’know what? I’m going to extend the vehicle analogy.

Because not only are we being told that having a vehicle makes this guy healthy, but also the existence of the option of owning a vehicle would ruin everyone’s health. No one can have a vehicle. And that’s counted as support for health. No one must ever have a choice. Everyone must walk because obviously walking is the best, one true way to health. Owning a vehicle so I can go to the beach and swim is unacceptable. That’s not supporting good health. Everyone must only become healthy in one way. Even the existence of an alternative option must be resisted and shouted down.

 

[Hussar]

Yes, but...that's only true in a version of the game with pretty free spell choice and neo-vancian spell preparation, or something like the 3.x scroll access. You can envision a version of the game (and arguably to some extent such a version existed in previous editions) where you could both have Endure Elements, and still potential suffer from a storm, from not choosing it or not preparing it in favor of a different situation.

Note I did mention other versions of DnD repeatedly and how they actively supported things like survival. But I was then told in no uncertain terms that all versions of DnD support all things equally.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Being more serious I'd say that post-Gygaxian D&D falls short even of Gygaxian D&D with the XP for GP rules in the roleplaying department.

I don't really see this. 2E had rewards for all kinds of other things, including RP I didn't find that reward system helpful (I am not big into gold for XP either but I don't think it hinders RP)

I would say there's a flaw in your reasoning. Mechanical buttressing done well can help. (Done badly it can be worse than not having any). It's not necessary - but that doesn't make it useless.

It can help some people and some type of RP, it can also hinder and hurt for some people and some types of RP. This is one of the fundamental divides here. If you want the system to get out of the way of RP so you can RP, then you want less mechanical buttressing.

Which is why we still compute on Babbage-designed Difference Engines and they don't fall short of modern computers. I think that if you have the first example of something and sixty years later that is as good as it gets in just about any aspect then there is something deeply wrong going on.

i Don't think tech is a good analogy in general for RPGs. RPGs are not something I see as tech. I see it more like movies and someone saying Nosferatu isn't a horror movie or was poorly done horror, because you think the nu does it better or something. But to the the tech point: we aren't talking about a first that became obsolete. People still play D&D. And they even still play the original D&D. Decades later you can still run the game using the first system (and for many people their first choice is one of the earlier editions).

 

[FrogReaver]

Y’know what? I’m going to extend the vehicle analogy.

Because not only are we being told that having a vehicle makes this guy healthy, but also the existence of the option of owning a vehicle would ruin everyone’s health. No one can have a vehicle. And that’s counted as support for health. No one must ever have a choice. Everyone must walk because obviously walking is the best, one true way to health. Owning a vehicle so I can go to the beach and swim is unacceptable. That’s not supporting good health. Everyone must only become healthy in one way. Even the existence of an alternative option must be resisted and shouted down.

Yea… you are making no sense here.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Y’know what? I’m going to extend the vehicle analogy.

Because not only are we being told that having a vehicle makes this guy healthy, but also the existence of the option of owning a vehicle would ruin everyone’s health. No one can have a vehicle. And that’s counted as support for health. No one must ever have a choice. Everyone must walk because obviously walking is the best, one true way to health. Owning a vehicle so I can go to the beach and swim is unacceptable. That’s not supporting good health. Everyone must only become healthy in one way. Even the existence of an alternative option must be resisted and shouted down.

I don't think we are that far apart. But I think we are getting lost in the analogy. All I am contending is that social interaction mechanics can be helpful for (a) some in exploring rp and (b) interfere with RP for others. So I am just disputing the notion that games with minimal social interaction mechanics or none, don't support RP. For (b) it supports RP to minimize these. For (a) it supports RP to increase them. I am all for options. If WOTC wants optional social interaction mechanics that is fair. I think it harms (a) though when these are more default (which goes to buy experience with 3E where by making that stuff default it impacted how the table played even when I was actively trying to avoid it). So I do think it is better if it is clearly labeled optional. That said, that is just my opinion. Most design choices in D&D are not in line with my opinion and that is perfectly fine. I just more take issue with the idea that the game is somehow lacking for RP when it leaves room for RP. I think this leaving room is one of the more successful areas of the design

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, you don't have to use Investiture if you don't want to. It's literally just a setting element explaining how things work for the World Axis. It isn't a "rule" in the strictest sense. There is not, to my knowledge, any actual ritual for the process nor for its removal, that's all left for each table to figure out (or for adventure writers to write about.)

If you desire a different explanation, you can use it. But it would generally be best to stick with one that doesn't employ divine Big Brother surveillance, since that's rather well known for the problems it causes, both cosmologically and in actual at-table play.


And if one wishes to play a divine caster...?

Big Brother looking over your shoulder through the telescreen and instantly punishing your slightest heterodoxy isn't somehow the only way to run divine magic. Now who's "bak[ing] in a lot of setting information in order to make these elements work as intended"? Talk about a highly unverisimilitudinous way to go about magic. Major gods must hardly have any time for anything but watching their millions of worshipers.

I doubt they have millions of clerics though.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Many DMs call for checks which happen in sequential order.

John does X. If he success, they run into a Y. Jane attempts to bypass the Y. If she success, they run into a Z. June attempts to bypass the Z. If she success, they run into a ZZ. But June failed and the party is locked out of this path.



But what if a player with less meta knowledge of the subject or less outgoing wants to be involved. They act the knowledge to be useful or or the personality to get in the conversation with helpful info.

If the ranger is the only on excited about foraging or tracking, it's fine. But if 2 or more are interested, it's up to the players and DM to figure out how to share stoplight as it isn't enforced.





The benefit of gamism is that it ensures teamplay. The drawback is that it's unnatural.

The drawback is often more bad than the benefit is good here, but it depends.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My point is that a survival game can be based around various resources only one of which is food... in a world with magic the possibilities are even greater.

Or the possibilities are reduced, with magic fixing problems.

 

[Hussar]

Yea… you are making no sense here.

Yet funnily enough the very next poster not only understood what I meant but meaningfully responded to it.

But in the interests of communication let me clarify.

Your analogy is one true wayism. You are saying that the man’s health is supported by the fact that he doesn’t have a vehicle. Which is true.

But it is then extended because of various claims in this thread that the lack of mechanics in a system equates to support. And any suggestion that we add optional mechanics to give a different kind of support is immediately shouted down as completely unnecessary because lack of mechanics is in itself all the support needed.

Now if you’re like me and you think that the lack of mechanics is actually not support, I get left entirely out in the cold. I’m not allowed to have a vehicle because if I have a vehicle that somehow means that the guy will no longer be healthy.

It’s one true wayism all the way through. This whole thread has been an exercise in one true wayism. Anything other than Freeform play is derided as rollplay and denounced as actively hurting the game.

Is that clearer?