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

[TwoSix]

And that is why they don’t deserve to survive.

I prefer games where at least the player characters are not jerks.

A game where characters can't be motivated by the desire for revenge or vengeance seems limited to me.

I'd like at least as much Abercrombie influence in my games as I have rationalist fanfic tropes.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Barring such a cosmic revelation, we can safely assume that there isn't one guiding hand behind everything that we experience in the real world the way there may be in an RPG.

Not that I would particularly disagree with you on the likely nature of the universe, but I'd like to point out that most of the humanity would.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Enabling that doesn't strike me as a flaw in the game system

It’s technically possible in D&D, but the “don’t be a jerk” rule is supposed to prevent it. I have no desire to play with jerks, or people who want to pretend to be jerks.

 

[TwoSix]

It’s technically possible in D&D, but the “don’t be a jerk” rule is supposed to prevent it. I have no desire to play with jerks, or people who want to pretend to be jerks.

Sure. I'm much more in tune with @Lanefan in that I see "being a jerk out of game" and "playing a character who's a jerk" as wildly disparate things.

I certainly wouldn't want to remove something with the literary depth of "revenge" as a character motivator.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Why? Is this a game about pretending to be a jerk? Jerks&Jackasses? Whatever, childish revenge makes for a crap story.

Hamlet? Terrible! Count of Monte Cristo? What a whiner! Moby Dick. For a few dollars more. Cask of Amontillado. Most operas.

But no, greed is more justified as a character motivation.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sure. I'm much more in tune with @Lanefan in that I see "being a jerk out of game" and "playing a character who's a jerk" as wildly disparate things.

I certainly wouldn't want to remove something with the literary depth of "revenge" as a character motivator.

Well, that’s just my personal preference. I prefer my D&D to be about heroes being heroic.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Hamlet? Terrible! Count of Monte Cristo? What a whiner! Moby Dick. For a few dollars more. Cask of Amontillado. Most operas.

Most of those stories are about how self-destructive and stupid revenge is.

I would see the likes of Hamlet and Ahab as villains in an RPG. Hamlet kills or causes the death of a string of innocent people, all the while failing to kill the guilty party.

But no, greed is more justified as a character motivation.

Who said anything about greed?

 

[FrozenNorth]

Horseshoe theory in action.

I think it is something a bit different. Horseshoe theory is when extreme positions tend to overlap.

I think it is more like convergent evolution. Different ways of solving the same problem.

 

[Scribe]

Most of those stories are about how self-destructive and stupid revenge is.

So, stories that reflect the human condition?

 

[TwoSix]

I think it is something a bit different. Horseshoe theory is when extreme positions tend to overlap.

I think it is more like convergent evolution. Different ways of solving the same problem.

I tend to think of it as more that game preferences aren't really on a linear axis. There are multiple preferences in play that aren't correlated with each other.