D&D General A glimpse at WoTC's current view of Rule 0

[Oofta]

Absolutely! Multiple have said it is never acceptable, for any reason, to have any discussion actually at the table.

And the survey says! Bzzzzt ... misrepresenting what people have said! I've stated, as have others, that we'll table long discussions until after the session so we can keep the game moving.

This effectively nixes the vast majority of possibilities of discussion, particularly because in my experience, even with very good DMs, discussion outside of game is akin to Mr. Sopwith's description of how many camels he's spotted: "Nearly...ooh...nearly one." "Nearly one?" "Call it none."

Several others have openly rejected any possibility of even out-of-game discussion in past threads. One has said, repeatedly, that they know every territory, polity, and faction of the entire world in which their campaigns occur. It literally isn't possible for any PCs to come from a "ʜɪᴄ ꜱᴠɴᴛ ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏɴᴇꜱ" type region, nor to be any sort of one-off experiment or the result of an accident, nor any other possible way a being could be anything other than one of the races they have established...even though (by their own admission) the players have never been to several of those regions, know nothing about them, and have no possible way to have learned the slightest thing about those places.

There is absolutely a strong antipathy for ever sitting down, hearing what the player has to say, and sincerely working to find a resolution that would please both parties. In some cases, to even ask for it has been likened, I kid you not, to being an outright terrorist trying to destroy the DM's "vision." I can't recall if it was "terrorist" or "saboteur", but it was definitely one of those two words explicitly used to refer to players who dared question anything about the setting or options not explicitly included.

Since the campaign world exists in my imagination (with certain established lore written down or explained verbally to a group) of course I know everything about my world. If it had not been recorded in lore then I fill in the details as necessary. When deciding what species are allowed the level of detail is not very granular. It is, however established written lore. Same way that I know a city exists, but until people go to that city and seek out a blacksmith, the specific blacksmith has not been established because there was no reason for me to establish that particular lore. On the other hand, go to any given city and look for a car dealer they don't exist because cars don't exist in my world.

The DM creates the world, the character interacts with the world via their actions so they don't get to dictate any hidden valley or lost city where their PC comes from.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Scenario: I run a game. My players all trust me. You are invited to join. You dont trust me. What happens?
This scenario has been used in this very thread.

I expect you to earn my trust and enthusiasm, rather than justifying anything and everything you do with, "Don't you trust me?"

Earning that trust and enthusiasm is not all that difficult a prospect. But it does require that you display behaviors consistent with actually caring about what I think and feel, with seeking consensus rather than laying down dicta, and being willing to accept and incorporate criticism even if you don't like it or outright disagree with it. Or, in simpler terms: being willing to have a real, respectful conversation about issues and working to find a solution we can all work with. As I've said. Several times.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And the survey says! Bzzzzt ... misrepresenting what people have said! I've stated, as have others, that we'll table long discussions until after the session so we can keep the game moving.



Since the campaign world exists in my imagination (with certain established lore written down or explained verbally to a group) of course I know everything about my world. If it had not been recorded in lore then I fill in the details as necessary. When deciding what species are allowed the level of detail is not very granular. It is, however established written lore. Same way that I know a city exists, but until people go to that city and seek out a blacksmith, the specific blacksmith has not been established because there was no reason for me to establish that particular lore. On the other hand, go to any given city and look for a car dealer they don't exist because cars don't exist in my world.

The DM creates the world, the character interacts with the world via their actions so they don't get to dictate any hidden valley or lost city where their PC comes from.

Yes, I'm aware your players are more like witnesses than participants. They get the privilege of witnessing events unfolding in the world you've created.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Eh. Always felt pretty bad to me that you could be doing all this work, saving the world and stopping evil and everything, and then immediately get demoted to Sir Not Appearing In This Film the moment a cutscene happened and the REAL characters (read: WC1-3 NPCs) showed up and acted like they'd just toiled so very hard.

Not saying every game has to canonically feature the PC like FFXIV has the "Warrior of Light" and such. Just that the whiplash from being the one who did all the work to being just some nameless, faceless soldier was either hilarious or frustrating depending on how invested you were in the story.

Blizzard got much better with this over subsequent expansions. I mean other than everybody still having to call your character 'Champion' (because they can't program and record every character name ever created)... your PC nowadays is indeed perceived and treated by all the NPCs in the game as one of the "real" characters that leads the WoW world forward.

On a similar note... this is the one thing that I will definitely LOVE about "AI" when some CRPG finally incorporates it... the game having a large language model of the computer game's player character voice-over performer that will be able to translate the written name you have chosen and translate it into an actual voiced name in the game of the VO artist (and thus your character can be identified by name in all conversations and such.) The VO artist of course will be paid for all of the vocal pronounciations they do and record to allow the LLM to generate character names with their voice... but that'll be the ultimate in true interaction-- when the game's NPCs can identify your PC by name.

 

[Mort]

It means the world you live in exists before you do, so you are shaped by its traits and to some degree by its assumptions.

Done well, this can be absolutely amazing. The Players really feel like their characters are part of a bigger world and when they accomplish things in the world it's with an even bigger sense of accomplishment because it wasn't "made" for them, they had to carve their path. I've been in a group where the DMs world really came alive, it was awesome and gave me a lot of inspiration going forward.

But there is a danger - If the DM is too in love with the world and barely tolerated the players "messing" with it. I've seen this a few times. One was particularly bad. The DM had this clearly vibrant, detailed world with lots of things for characters to do - in theory. The problem was he clearly didn't ACTUALLY want the players (through their characters) making any changes or affecting anything. This was to the point where if the players where engaging in anything non-trivial, they literally couldn't solve it/conquer it (be it a BBEG fight or an exploration challenge). As in when we would engage something, we would just flail at it uselessly (combat or non-combat challenge) until one/some of his designated NPCs would come in and literally solve the situation for us (despite none of us actually wanting that). The DM was so attached to his world that he didn't want the players to be the ones actually affecting it!?! Extreme example, but it actually happened to me (lasted about 3 sessions before I realized that's just how thing will be then made my excuses as to why not coming anymore).

I've seen lesser extremes of the above, as well, the DM SHOULD have a love for his world, but they should also have a love for the PCs interacting with and messing it up!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The amount of vitriol you expressed lead to my response. Not allowing any race a player may want? Bad. Inexperienced/inept DMs? Bad. Mediocre DMs, which you qualify as the majority of DMs? Not quite bad but really darn close.

And then you go on to say that "harmful" DMs are, in so many words, terrible tyrants only interested in their own fun. Which presumably includes most if not all DMs you determine are bad. All based on your subjective judgement of what a bad DM is. There's no logical reason you would consider a DM bad if you agreed with everything they did. I'm not making any assumptions, I based my response based on what you said.

Yeah. Because you getting misrepresented is the Worst Thing Ever. But you misrepresenting me? Totally kosher. Nothing wrong with that.

We're done here.

 

[Scribe]

I expect you to earn my trust and enthusiasm, rather than justifying anything and everything you do with, "Don't you trust me?"

Earning that trust and enthusiasm is not all that difficult a prospect. But it does require that you display behaviors consistent with actually caring about what I think and feel, with seeking consensus rather than laying down dicta, and being willing to accept and incorporate criticism even if you don't like it or outright disagree with it. Or, in simpler terms: being willing to have a real, respectful conversation about issues and working to find a solution we can all work with. As I've said. Several times.

What are these issues in your mind? What qualifies?

Because man, I'm here running a game kicking in doors, killing monsters, spending the loot, and moving on. "Earning trust" is a whole lot more adulting that I really couldnt be bothered with.

 

[dave2008]

I mean, when I pushed for anything softer than "absolute authority" I was repeatedly rejected by multiple different posters, and at the time, I don't recall anyone (including Micah) delivering any sort of full-throated critique of how "absolute" authority was clearly a bridge too far. It's a bit frustrating to only now be told "no no no, not absolute authority, never!" when all of this was totally absent back when I was practically begging folks to back away from that terminology.

I think it is an issue of base assumptions and what you seem to want in response. You seem to want a very precise rebuttal when most people probably assume certain things and don't think to address them in a detailed manner. I feel like you seem to want a lot more in responses from posters than I feel is needed or warranted. It is like you assume someone is trying to trick you if they are not 100% explicit in their response. If you assume positive intent you might have a different outlook. For example, why would anyone need to give a "full-throated critique" of absolute authority? That is pretty ridiculous and doesn't need to be expressed by most posters IMO.

So. Final authority. What does that look like? Is it possible for a group to collectively exercise final authority? I should think so, given that group decision-making (please, for the love of God and all that is holy, don't use the base canard of dismissing all group decision-making as "design by committee"). Does that mean a DM with final authority is in fact utterly irreplaceable, or is it possible for other approaches to work? If other approaches are possible and valid, can there be things either side could learn from the other to do better? Pobody's nerfect, so I should think there would be.

Of course other approaches can work. Final authority can be with different people and could lie with different people on different subjects, it doesn't have to be the DM. It also doesn't to be one person. Ideally the approached used is discussed and agreed to in session 0.

For example: in my games players have final authority on their characters; I (DM) have final authority on general game mechanics; we give final authority via vote on setting issues

 

[Oofta]

The original post, "You are the kind of player who wants to play a wookie in a Star Trek game" was a very deliberate and ridiculous strawman in this overly emotional and very silly argument folks are having.

But . . . I'd totally allow a player to play a wookie in a Star Trek game. After having a good conversation with my player, there is no reason to assume including a wookie character would break the theme and style of my Star Trek game. It's be pretty easy . . . Kashyyyk is now a planet within my version of the Star Trek universe, perhaps within Federation space, perhaps a Federation world. Wookies wouldn't have been enslaved by the "Empire", but perhaps they were by the Cardassians or Klingons. The PC wookie could be a Federation member just as Nog (Ferengi) or Worf (Klingon) were in classic Trek. Maybe only a few folks understand the wookie language (like Han), or perhaps the universal translator works just fine for wookies.

Y'all need to relax in this thread and stop taking things so personally. Overly restrictive and controlling DMs are not my style, as a player or as a DM myself. But if that's your style, and you've got players who are having fun in your games, more power to you. If you lean towards the more collaborative approach to DMing, we are of the same tribe . . . but don't let the grognards get you down, you aren't going to win any internet arguments with them, nor they with you.

So now a DM that wants consistency and a world that makes sense to them so they limit species allowed is "Overly restrictive and controlling"? Really? I'm just doing the best I can to run a game that I and my players enjoy. You may not like some of my decisions but that's a pretty condescending way of phrasing it.

 

[Oofta]

Good point, I had forgotten the "Jedi" part of that strawman example.

If I had a player who wanted to play a Jedi in a Star Trek game . . . we'd have a conversation and probably make the character psychic, like Vulcans, but not on a Jedi-level of power. But we'd have that conversation, and I'd be happy to try and find a way to model the character into the game we all agreed to play.

In a world with Q that have the powers of minor gods in it, Jedi powers don't seem that out of line.