D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[prabe]

it isn’t though, you can always come up with some highly improbable nonsense, it remains just that

"Makes sense," like "improbable" or "nonsense," is going to be very much in the eye of the beholder, innit? I mean, as well as context mattering and all-a-that: In a game where, for instance, Fate (not the game) is a theme, all sorts of coincidences seem plausible and appropriate.

 

[soviet]

it isn’t though, you can always come up with some highly improbable nonsense, it remains just that

The challenge is that myself and I expect hawkeye can often come up with plausible, appropriate reasons.

 

[hawkeyefan]

it isn’t though, you can always come up with some highly improbable nonsense, it remains just that

It need not be improbable. It certainly shouldn’t be nonsense.

I just have to push back against this idea that the players can never contribute anything beyond their character, but for some reason it’s okay for the GM to think of everything from the cosmos to the contents of a kobold’s purse.

Having one guiding force behind every single thing has to be considered as likely to break verisimilitude/immersion/plausibility as anything else.

 

[Oofta]

It need not be improbable. It certainly shouldn’t be nonsense.

I just have to push back against this idea that the players can never contribute anything beyond their character, but for some reason it’s okay for the GM to think of everything from the cosmos to the contents of a kobold’s purse.

Having one guiding force behind every single thing has to be considered as likely to break verisimilitude/immersion/plausibility as anything else.

As a person I can't influence the world outside of what I say and do. Since the PCs are engaging in a fictional world, the fiction of the world has to be determined somehow but a DM is not a player in the world, they are running the world.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The challenge is that myself and I expect hawkeye can often come up with plausible, appropriate reasons.

Reasons that are acceptably plausible and appropriate to you and your table, of course.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It need not be improbable. It certainly shouldn’t be nonsense.

I just have to push back against this idea that the players can never contribute anything beyond their character, but for some reason it’s okay for the GM to think of everything from the cosmos to the contents of a kobold’s purse.

Having one guiding force behind every single thing has to be considered as likely to break verisimilitude/immersion/plausibility as anything else.

Not to me. Players can make suggestions, but they don't just get to change the world outside of their PCs in my game. Different preferences, so there's no point to "pushing back" against it. You have your game and I have mine.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As a person I can't influence the world outside of what I say and do. Since the PCs are engaging in a fictional world, the fiction of the world has to be determined somehow but a DM is not a player in the world, they are running the world.

I'm pretty sure everyone here knows the positions we're taking on this issue. I don't expect sides to shift at this point.

 

[Oofta]

It need not be improbable. It certainly shouldn’t be nonsense.

I just have to push back against this idea that the players can never contribute anything beyond their character, but for some reason it’s okay for the GM to think of everything from the cosmos to the contents of a kobold’s purse.

Having one guiding force behind every single thing has to be considered as likely to break verisimilitude/immersion/plausibility as anything else.

Push all you want, it still just comes back to basic preferences of what people want out of the game. D&D is flexible enough to work with many different styles, but it is not a game designed from the ground up for collaborative world building.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm pretty sure everyone here knows the positions we're taking on this issue. I don't expect sides to shift at this point.

Oh the preference is fine. It’s the logic of stated reason that’s flawed.

If anyone said “I want to maintain control” I wouldn’t push back at all. But that’s not what people tend to say. They couch it in the idea that a player deciding anything beyond what they already know per the rules and whatever setting details the DM has deigned to share with them is somehow anti-immersive or some similar sentiment.

But equally as anti-immersive (if not more) is the idea that there’s one creative force behind everything else in the game. That the DM’s near complete creative control of the game world is not anti-immersive at all.

So yeah… appeals to “in the real world I can’t decide X” just fail, in my eyes.

 

[soviet]

Reasons that are acceptably plausible and appropriate to you and your table, of course.

Is the implication meant to be that, essentially, me and my group have lower standards about what's plausible or acceptable?