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

[pemerton]

Then who are you arguing with? Who thinks classic D&D play is the only way to play?

Well, I am arguing with people who say (i) that only simulationist-type mechanics permit immersion, and (ii) that an action can't be declared from a character's perspective if the resolution of the action is sensitive to the player's intent in declaring it.

 

[pemerton]

It mandates much more than that: it mandates against individual PC actions

Does it? Is this claim based on your extensive reading of and play of Torchbearer?

 

[pemerton]

Given that I was fine with the bar example, and I said that some things can be inferred, this is complete non sequitur. Descriptions do implicitly contain all sort of things that were not explicitly mentioned. "I don't know whether the trees during summer have leaves because the GM didn't tell me." C'mon! What you doing here is just building an obvious strawman and I think you're smart enough to know it.

You're the one who replied to my post about "opportunities" and "externality" and said that the player narrating an opportunity is "spawning reality". If in fact you don't think that all cases of players narrating opportunities - eg the bar example that @TwoSix introduced, and that I was discussing - are not "spawning reality", fine.

I'm just responding to what you post.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Does it? Is this claim based on your extensive reading of and play of Torchbearer?

Well, does it? At the face value it certainly sounded like it, but you of course are free to elaborate on whether the rule has some exceptions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It need not be DM-side stuff, that’s the point.

Set aside that idea for a moment. What does it harm if the player says “Brand is drunk and in a bad mood and looking for a fight. He finds the biggest guy in here and decks him”?

Forget whose authority that typically is in your opinion… what about this is bad? How is play harmed by this?



See the quote above from Lanefan about that being “DM-side stuff. That’s from one page ago.

You’ve been posting in this thread for a while. Do you really need me to find more examples?

@Lanefan Is describing their preference (which also happens to be my preference, but that's immaterial). The only potential issue here is presenting that preference non-subjectively.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Last time my players walked into a tavern, I had already populated it with patrons, all with names, backstories, portraits and stat blocks. And of course, the tavern staff, and a guest who stayed in his room upstairs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But you're not "spawning reality".

Consider this: in a book that you are reading - a work of fiction - the author might refer to trees. And given that other features of the book make you think the fiction is set somewhere more-or-less temperate European, you probably imagine deciduous trees. And if the fiction also says or strongly implies its spring or summer (eg there's no reference to snow or cold winds, there is reference to sunshine and golden crops in the fields), then you will imagine leaves on those trees.

That is not you "spawning reality". That is you immersing yourself, imaginatively, in the fiction you are reading.

Now, suppose that the GM tells you there is a tavern. Are you expected - contrary to all intuition - to refrain from imagining anything? For my part, and I am guessing @TwoSix's also, I imagine stuff that flows naturally from what the GM has said, and other established or implied fictional context - so a fireplace, tables and benches, patrons drinking ale, etc.

And so when I then declare "I punch the nearest guy in the face" I'm not "spawning reality". I'm sharing my imagination, and acting on it.

To have to refrain from imagining anything until the GM tells me - eg there's a tavern, but it has no particular look, no particular people in it, no particular furnishing, etc - is extremely un-immersive. It's not how I engage with written fiction. It's not at all intuitive.

I ask questions to clarify the details if they're important to me as a player. Then I have something to act upon. This is a pretty well-known game loop. Making up anything but the smallest of details as a player is extremely un-immersive to me, just as needing the GM to give you setting detail is apparently extremely un-immersive to you.

That's all this is.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You're the one who replied to my post about "opportunities" and "externality" and said that the player narrating an opportunity is "spawning reality". If in fact you don't think that all cases of players narrating opportunities - eg the bar example that @TwoSix introduced, and that I was discussing - are not "spawning reality", fine.

I'm just responding to what you post.

You have read the whole discussion, and my previous comments regarding the bar example, I presume? I asked several times what you meant by "opportunities" and literally used the bar as an example for how the description implicitly includes such opportunities, but those for some reason were not good enough for you, which to me logically implies that your wish for the player to create opportunities must entail something more.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Last time my players walked into a tavern, I had already populated it with patrons, all with names, backstories, portraits and stat blocks. And of course, the tavern staff, and a guest who stayed in his room upstairs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you think it would be possible to not frame their desire to have creative input as world bending power?

Creative input on the world is world-bending power. Literally.