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

[Crimson Longinus]

I’m not misrepresenting what you said.

Yes you are.

You described the example as pandora’s box. Others have described it similarly. That allowing something once creates a problem of having to allow it again and again.

Yes, but that "something" was not allowing player to invent/infer/suggest for some setting element. That "something" was allowing a specific tactic to work.

 

[Oofta]

Yes, it's about mismatched expectations. I think that's related, though not directly, to the idea of conflict over narrative authority between players and DMs. That’s a type of mismatched expectations.




As bewilderment that you can expect all of that from a DM… but giving some players some authority is “pandora’s box” or a slippery slope.

If I described putting all the worldbuilding on the DM as untenable, I’d expect you’d have some opinions about that, no?

Again ... "bewilderment"? It's just a preference. In my case it's that I've had the same campaign world for a long time and there's a lot of info that I would need to share that I don't want to. I also don't want to have to learn or worry about someone else's lore, it's why I don't use published campaigns.

Also, I've never really had a player that expressed a desire to do so. But since I have never seen anyone call collaborative world building untenable you don't have to worry about it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's a substitution that happens a lot here where the goal of play and the player's goal get conflated. The goal of play in a game of Netrunner is to navigate a series of difficult choices and evaluate the participant's grasp of risk assessment in novel board states. The player's goal is to win.

The point can be to produce an interesting story, while the player's goal is to overcome obstacles. If anything, the entire purpose of rules is to transmute the one into the other.

The important thing is, I think, is establishing what the player is supposed to be doing at the outset. If they aren't supposed to care about success, they should be told that upfront and given instruction on what to maximize for.

I defy you to show me a rulebook for Netrunner that describes the goal of play the way you just did.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes.


No, though certainly an unified creative vision helps for things to be coherent and compelling. But what you seem to have hard time grasping, that a lot of players do not want introduce setting elements. That is not what they're there to do, they are to perform another, equally vital part, to play the main characters of the story that will unfold in this world. This story it is not prewritten, it is the thing we create together, not the setting.

Exactly. The events of the campaign are the collaborative bits.

 

[Micah Sweet]

“Artificiality” is an interesting word choice here. I’m assuming your feeling is that a setting pre-created by a single person therefore feels less artificial?

Pre-created by someone who isn't me (when I'm a player).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I will be the first to admit that I am personally unconcerned with the idea of "artificiality" as it's been presented. Probably because I've GMed so much that I'm not really gonna forget that this is all make believe.

However, I think that's different than the idea of "buy in". I want characters and situations that are compelling and that draw me in. I want to buy in to their world.

As it relates to the limits of characters in the game... the way I look at it is that in the real world, I generally have other ways I can influence things that don't really exist for characters in the game. And so some authorial ability in the game helps offset that loss.

What other ways, if I may ask? What loss are you talking about?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure.

His primary concern, and mine although I wasn't really worried about it, was that our friendship was intact. He didn't want a game to become an issue that affected us. We've been friends for like 40 years (insane), so that was his main thing. I assured him that wasn't an issue at all... we just have mismatched expectations about play, and it caused frustration.

He said that what caused the frustration for him was that he felt like it was a no-win situation. I pointed out that he did get what he had set out to get in that scene. I just hinted at possible future trouble. I explained that as soon as I did that, and saw his response, I realized that I would have been better off with some sort of other consequence. But based on the fiction of play, it was the most obvious and sensible consequence (that the people they were allying with could cause issues).

I explained to him that there's no winning the game in Stonetop, and that I feel that sometimes he's trying to win rather than to be curious about what happens. And although there are elements of challenge in the game... enemies to defeat, problems to solve, and so on... it's more about seeing what happens than it is about winning.

None of this was anything he didn't really know, but it was good to talk about it and share thoughts on it. After that talk, we were all good.

Did your friend suddenly stop feeling the they had been about the game? Did they happily stop "trying to win" after you had that talk?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is anyone here really . . . telling you that you are doing it wrong?

I mean, I'm skimming the thread at this point, but there seems to be a lot of folks saying "Stop telling me I'm doing it wrong!" and very few (that I've noticed) actually telling anyone, "Hey, you're doing it wrong!"

Disagreement is not the same thing as telling someone their preferences are wrong.

@Oofta, your playstyle and viewpoint does not align with the way I like to engage with D&D (and other RPGs) today. That doesn't mean I think you're doing it wrong, just wrong for me. You seem to have a good gaming group going based on those preferences, so who's to tell you that all that fun you and your friends are having is wrong? I don't think anyone here is doing that.

If I've missed an egregious post in all of this circular back-and-forth, I apologize.

Continually asking someone how they would do it differently when they're happy with the way they're doing it now can feel like telling them they're doing it wrong.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yes you are.


Yes, but that "something" was not allowing player to invent/infer/suggest for some setting element. That "something" was allowing a specific tactic to work.

Yes, an idea that the player introduced. An angle to try and address a problem that didn’t come from the DM.

That’s pandora’s box?

Again ... "bewilderment"? It's just a preference.

Not bewilderment at the preference. I don’t know how you keep falling back to preferences.

My bewilderment is about the enormity of expectations for the DM to do all that work himself, to keep track of it all, to make sure it’s all consistent, to make sure it’s all clear.

To have the ability to onboard player declarations and integrate them into the setting, and to have things adjust accordingly.

But to think that if the player contributes an idea for play beyond what their character can do, the DM can’t deal with it.

That idea bewilders me.

Now, I get that folks don’t prefer to play that way… and that’s fine. What I’m objecting to is the idea that it cannot work. That it’s flawed in some way. That it’s a slippery slope that will lead to further problems.

It’s simply not the case. It it doesn’t work for a given DM, sure… than it’s a case of that DM not being skilled at or comfortable with that approach. The issue is not with the approach itself.

Do you see my point now?

 

[hawkeyefan]

What other ways, if I may ask? What loss are you talking about?

To start, most of us don’t live our actual lives with a cypher. We don’t filter everything we experience and know and feel through an outside party. We live our lives in first person.

In RPGS, that’s not the case. Everything comes from the GM. The players are all given the same details, the same level of focus. We are limited by what the GM shares.

Aside from that basic function, there are also assumptions for the game in question. For D&D, those are likely things like “find a reason to work together” and “no evil characters”. Then there are concerns like hogging the spotlight and so on.

I’m not saying any of these things are bad in and of themselves… most are reasonable and serve some purpose… but they exist. They are limits on me as a player. I accept them, but then I like to get a little something in return. Selecting elements of my character’s history, his relations and associates, being able to shape those things and bring them into play in a meaningful way.

Did your friend suddenly stop feeling the they had been about the game? Did they happily stop "trying to win" after you had that talk?

Yeah, things have been good since then. He hasn’t turtled while playing at all since then. No complaints, no other incidents like that. He’s made some really interesting and bold moves with his character.

It was a productive discussion.

Continually asking someone how they would do it differently when they're happy with the way they're doing it now can feel like telling them they're doing it wrong.

I asked what ideas he might think of. I meant as a hypothetical… just as the ideas I suggested were. He seemed to misunderstand what I was asking, so I clarified. That’s happened a lot.

He’s confirmed he has no interest in coming up with ideas on how to get the idea to work. I’ve stopped asking.