D&D General D&D Assumptions Ain't What They Used To Be

[Chaosmancer]

The greatest gaming gift I have ever been given is being able to game with friends and family followed by the fact that it’s a group of people that can take the wonderful game and fiction for what it is.

After this thread I feel even more blessed. Good lord!

Why is it that whenever I express that I don't want to spend multiple hours a day relaxing by pretending to be okay with horrid things we see and hear and learn about in real life, I always get either direct accusations or side-ways comments about not being able to tell the difference between fiction and reality?

Yeah, I can tell the difference. The difference is one of them I can choose to change to be tolerable. The other I have to suffer though daily.

 

[Reynard]

Why is it that whenever I express that I don't want to spend multiple hours a day relaxing by pretending to be okay with horrid things we see and hear and learn about in real life, I always get either direct accusations or side-ways comments about not being able to tell the difference between fiction and reality?

Yeah, I can tell the difference. The difference is one of them I can choose to change to be tolerable. The other I have to suffer though daily.

it seems odd that you took @Warpiglet-7 comment personally when it didn't say anything about the things you just complained about.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think you are drawing a line that did not really exist for ancient people.

As I stated already. But @FrozenNorth was making a distinction about belief and effects. Those that view the world through such a lens, the effects are as obvious and certain as a D&D spell.

You think that people in the ancient world prayed and then put their dirty clothes away as if they were clean? That they didn't understand the difference between praying over a wound and waiting a week to see if it killed them, or praying over a wound and within seconds there being no wound?

Yeah, there is a line that exists between believing in an effect, and an actual effect. Sure, ancient people prayed to increase their harvest, and they had no possible way to tell if that had any real effect on the harvest... but we KNOW that a cleric who casts Plant Growth has a real, demonstrable effect on the harvest. And a God of the Harvest blessing a kingdom so that none of their crops are ever destroyed by insects... would have a real, noticeable effect. Even if the people of the world couldn't tell, we as the people deciding how much technology they have to improve their moral framework would know that has a massive effect.

 

[Chaosmancer]

it seems odd that you took @Warpiglet-7 comment personally when it didn't say anything about the things you just complained about.

You think so?

The greatest gaming gift I have ever been given is being able to game with friends and family followed by the fact that it’s a group of people that can take the wonderful game and fiction for what it is.

After this thread I feel even more blessed. Good lord!

I wonder what he means by being able to game with people who can take the wonderful fiction for what it is. And that he is glad that this thread has reinforced how blessed he is that people can take the fiction for what it is. Which, is fiction. What could that be implying I wonder....

 

[Micah Sweet]

You think that people in the ancient world prayed and then put their dirty clothes away as if they were clean? That they didn't understand the difference between praying over a wound and waiting a week to see if it killed them, or praying over a wound and within seconds there being no wound?

Yeah, there is a line that exists between believing in an effect, and an actual effect. Sure, ancient people prayed to increase their harvest, and they had no possible way to tell if that had any real effect on the harvest... but we KNOW that a cleric who casts Plant Growth has a real, demonstrable effect on the harvest. And a God of the Harvest blessing a kingdom so that none of their crops are ever destroyed by insects... would have a real, noticeable effect. Even if the people of the world couldn't tell, we as the people deciding how much technology they have to improve their moral framework would know that has a massive effect.

I'm not much interested in building a setting from outside the perspective of the people living in it any more than is absolutely necessary.

 

[Belen]

You think so?


I wonder what he means by being able to game with people who can take the wonderful fiction for what it is. And that he is glad that this thread has reinforced how blessed he is that people can take the fiction for what it is. Which, is fiction. What could that be implying I wonder....

I just took the comment as that he was enjoying the thread and all the diverse ways people play the game.

There is nothing wrong with your method of gaming and you should be free to game in the environment that provides you the most comfort and fun.

I think everyone has styles of game they enjoy and people should be empowered to play in the types of games that suit them.

I have issues with anyone who would try to dictate other people's fun or the themes of their games.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm sorry. In part, your post was just a jumping off point for my frustrations with the topic. You just had a few triggering phrases that had me grinding my teeth.

I think of it like this, overall. Gotham is a great setting to read about, in small doses. Batman fits Gotham, and it is good that Gotham is so terrible that Batman can never truly win, because then we keep getting Batman stories. But, when I play DnD, I want to reach an ending that is good, while playing a character that is good. And if my character encounters "Gotham City" while adventuring... I can't actually do anything about it. My DnD party can't end racism, solve slavery, get rid of addiction, crush poverty, get rid of starvation, clean out government corruption, remove crime... it is too much. Any solutions we offer in the span of a game are either too little to really change anything, or would derail everything and spend years mired in it. But I'm playing a good person with the ability to make the world a better place, unlike real life where everything sucks and I can't change anything.

There's a meta-consideration here as well: once the story has achieved that good ending (e.g. you've cleaned up Gotham), where do you go from there if you want to keep the campaign going?

Sustaining a campaign over the very long term (a primary underlying consideration of mine) is why there always needs to be another enemy or problem, be it an individual or a system or a society or even just the other characters in the party.

And so, in a very long Gotham campaign you might - like Batman - never clean up the whole place but instead see incremental successes as you go along.

 

[Lanefan]

I stopped reading after Book 4: AFFC. It increasingly felt like GRRM lost the focus of the narrative as the page count, POV characters, and scope of the story kept expanding.

That expansion of characters and scope is to me a perfect blueprint for how a big sprawling D&D campaign should look once it's well underway; where you're not just telling one story but many and there's not just one party but many, some of which interweave with each other and others that remain mostly isolated.

Combine that with his willingness to kill off key characters and I'd say that series should be required reading for any DM.



(now if he'd only just get on and finish the damn thing...)

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's a meta-consideration here as well: once the story has achieved that good ending (e.g. you've cleaned up Gotham), where do you go from there if you want to keep the campaign going?

Sustaining a campaign over the very long term (a primary underlying consideration of mine) is why there always needs to be another enemy or problem, be it an individual or a system or a society or even just the other characters in the party.

And so, in a very long Gotham campaign you might - like Batman - never clean up the whole place but instead see incremental successes as you go along.

I think of it like the defining message of the series Angel, "you fight the good fight not because you're going to eventually win, but because every little bit of good you do makes a difference to someone, and the world becomes just a little brighter, even if it's just for a little while".

If I were playing a heroic character in D&D, that's what I would focus on.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That expansion of characters and scope is to me a perfect blueprint for how a big sprawling D&D campaign should look once it's well underway; where you're not just telling one story but many and there's not just one party but many, some of which interweave with each other and others that remain mostly isolated.

Combine that with his willingness to kill off key characters and I'd say that series should be required reading for any DM.



(now if he'd only just get on and finish the damn thing...)

What series is that? I think the person you're responding to has me blocked.