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

[pemerton]

Think the original description of the bar should have included how crowded it is

But, as per my post upthread about the trees and their leaves, there will always be information that is not narrated by the GM, but that (i) is implicit in what they have narrated, taken together with other established elements of the fiction, and (ii) that a player regards as salient although the GM has not thought of it.

Patrons in bars; leaves on trees; rubbish in alleyways; taxidermists in towns; whatever it might be.

The only way to avoid (ii) is to run such a tight railroad that only the GM gets to decide what is salient.

The only way to avoid (i) is to require the players to ignore the embodied, sensory, volitional nature of their characters, and instead ask the GM for permission to declare actions.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If that's not what you're trying to get at you need to explain what it is you are trying to ask.

I've explained it before. I've given examples. At this point I've got to conclude you're not really intested.

 

[pemerton]

You're not going to convince me any of those statements are anything more than your preference.

So just to be clear, you deny that it is possible for me and @TwoSix to immerse in a game in which we don't have to ask the GM for permission to declare actions like "I punch the nearest dude in the face"?

 

[hawkeyefan]

For the umpteenth time it's not about "power". It's about the roles we use in the game.

It is very clearly bout the power allowed to each role in the game. DMs have the power and players don’t, per your preference.

It’s a perfectly fine preference to have. I’ve not said you’re wrong for having the preference or anything like that.

Your preference has not yet in this thread been described as “impossible” or that a DM who allowed it as “not worthwhile”. Nor has anyone said that it’s so bizarre that they “barely understand” it.

When people say something is barely understandable, and it’s something with which I’m familiar, I tend to try to explain it.

EDIT: note that we can't simply "set preferences aside" because your whole argument is just your justification for your preference.

I didn’t ask you to set aside your preferemces. I asked @Lanefan to do so for a specific question.

I asked you what would this approach interfere with per @Micah Sweet ’s post. You opted to ignore that question and rant about things that don’t really pertain to anything I said to you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The point at issue is that you characterise those with different preferences as being anti-immersion and as believing that their PCs have world-bending power.

They're not anti-immersion, the way they get immersion would, however, very much not work for me.

And if the player is adding or changing details about the setting outside their PCs in-fiction ability to do so, they are the ones with world-bending power, not the PC. And my preference is that they do not have that power.

 

[Oofta]

What is the status of the second sentence?

I mean, it might be true in railroad games. It's false in most of the RPGs that I play. There are rules for resolving this action declaration, just as there are rules for resolving other declared actions.

Do you accept that the standard play loop of D&D is the following?

1. DM describes the scene​

2. The players describe what their characters do​

3. The DM narrates the results​

Because that's it. There's no "The players describe the world around them". It's not a railroad. I'm not talking about other games, I'm talking about what happens in a D&D game because this is a D&D thread on a D&D forum.

 

[pemerton]

What happens if you envision a crowded bar, the guy next to you envisioned an empty bar with just one lone drunk passed out at a table, the DM envisioned a crime scene where as your eyes adjusted to the dim interior you realize everyone is dead and the halfling behind the bar is holding bloody knives and they just hadn't gotten that far into the description?

A good RPG has formal or informal processes for resolving this.

For instance, when I GM, if I am in the process of framing a scene and someone starts to declare an action that might not fit with the full framing, I will ask them to pause while I finish my narration. It's not really rocket-science.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So just to be clear, you deny that it is possible for me and @TwoSix to immerse in a game in which we don't have to ask the GM for permission to declare actions like "I punch the nearest dude in the face"?

No, those things are your preference. They work for you. They do not work for me, and I have stated many times that your ways, while valid for you, are not my ways.

 

[Oofta]

I've explained it before. I've given examples. At this point I've got to conclude you're not really intested.

Explained what? There have been hundreds of posts, I can't read your mind.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This arose out of @TwoSix saying that he prefers not to ask "Is there a taxidermist in town?" but rather to declare "I go to visit the taxidermist", or "I enter the castle", or "I punch the nearest dude in the face", thus putting the onus back on the GM to respond to the declared action.

I have elaborated on TwoSix's point, by explaining how it is more immersive to take his approach, as it presupposes the presence of the character as an embodied, perceiving, volitional being in their world; rather than the sort of alienated, anaesthetised, disembodied persona that is implied by having to ask the GM at every point what I can see and what I can do. Which, as I've also posted upthread, tends to drift towards the GM playing my character for me.

To characterise the approach that TwoSix and I prefer as "world-bending power" is just absurd.

The world-bending power of hope and memory!

Not to mention that you're mocking an example that no one has given.

The actual example was "I punch the nearest dude in the face".

Hope and memory? What are you talking about? Are those game terms?