D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[hawkeyefan]

I said I couldn't take it seriously where someone has a contact wherever they go because I couldn't. Am I supposed to lie about that? And just as important why does it matter? If it doesn't matter to you, it doesn't.

I’m just pointing out how casually you dismiss the ideas of others and yet when it’s done to you, or even just when you perceive it may be happening, you never hesitate to point it out.

Someone may have many contacts. But not absolutely everywhere you go. Fundamentally it comes down to who decides details about the world. Which is ... wait for it ... a preference.

Yes… based on control!

This is my point. If we get past this preference shield… if we examine the reasons for it… why does one prefer for only the DM to decide these things… it’s about control. Control of the story or the setting or “realism” or the aesthetics of play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I doubt that very much

it basically invariably is however

Is this really so hard to imagine? Have you really never watched a movie or read a book or a comic that portrayed a well connected character?

that is not what I said, I just said they cannot always run into an old acquaintance, no matter where they are

I didn’t say you said it… it’s an overall sentiment being expressed by many in the thread. The idea that the DM needs to be the one to make all these decisions. In this case, to override a character ability in order to maintain their idea of “realism” or whatever you want to call it.

if it is probable and obscure, I'd say I'd probably allow it. I do not need to say 'no' every time, I just do not need to say 'yes' every time either, no matter how poorly thought out or phrased the background is

What about if it was a spell?

I feel it does the exact opposite

Well yes, I’m sure that that everything happening being up to one person seems far more verisimilitudinous!

no, he just said it isn't for him

No, he said he can’t take it seriously.

And you know what? He can say that… I don’t really have a problem with it. But it’s going to get a response.

 

[Maxperson]

I think what D&D has generally done is combine mechanics that are actually quite focused on one playstyle with playing and GMing advice that (falsely) claims to support a variety of playstyles. I think people have largely bridged that gap by retroactively finding justifications for the mechanical dissonance (e.g. 'Of course Tolkienesque fantasy should have regular TPKs') or more likely by changing and/or ignoring large parts of the rules or simply relying on a lot of GM fiat.

Of course, many people want what [current edition of D&D] supports and enjoy playing it as is, so for them there is no gap to bridge.

I'd love to see an edition of D&D that either overtly stated what it's mechanically supported playstyle is (like 4e) or in fact embraced it's place in the market as everyone's second choice and provided dials to mechanically support different playstyles (as 5e playtests falsely said it would).

I do think the playstyle D&D mechanically supports has changed over the years, in particular TSR to WotC is an absolute sea change.

I don't agree that the mechanics focus on one playstyle. There are games out there that revolve around a playstyle and they generally do that playstyle exceptionally well. D&D is broader, though. It doesn't do ANY playstyle exceptionally well, but it does do almost all of them decently to well. House rules then improve your particular playstyle from there.

 

[mamba]

Is this really so hard to imagine? Have you really never watched a movie or read a book or a comic that portrayed a well connected character?

not to that degree that he knows someone everywhere, no, and even well connected ones usually have a better explanation than ‘because I am a 2nd level Rogue with the criminal background’

I didn’t say you said it… it’s an overall sentiment being expressed by many in the thread. The idea that the DM needs to be the one to make all these decisions. In this case, to override a character ability in order to maintain their idea of “realism” or whatever you want to call it.

all the decisions, not sure, but ‘who cares what the player makes up or how probable it is, just let them run wild and roll with it’ just is not for me.
It might work for you and @pemerton, but I would lose interest, whether as DM or player

What about if it was a spell?

summon criminal contact?

Somehow more acceptable, because magic by definition is not grounded in probability or logic.

I still might not like it, D&D definitely has its shares of spells I do not like / think need to be removed or nerfed, but at least it then has more of a case for it than the background does, as it is harder to argue that this is not just an unintended result of the background being phrased poorly / too vaguely.

On the upside at least it costs resources, so that is something too

Well yes, I’m sure that that everything happening being up to one person seems far more verisimilitudinous!

depends on the one person

No, he said he can’t take it seriously.

yes, he cannot, which is why it isn’t for him. He did not say ‘no one can take this seriously’ or ‘this is inherently unserious’

 

[soviet]

It was clear from the backgrounds thread that it's a skill issue. Some people could spontaneously and easily think of ways a noble might get themselves an invite from the hobgoblin court, or a sailor might use their common experience to make friends with a sailor from a different culture. Other people couldn't think of any ways these things could happen beyond 'being a noble is a magical charm effect' or 'sailors must know everyone in the world'.

 

[Aldarc]

all the decisions, not sure, but ‘who cares what the player makes up or how probable it is, just let them run wild and roll with it’ just is not for me.
It might work for you and @pemerton, but I would lose interest, whether as DM or player

It seems like there is a Pacific Ocean's worth of excluded middle between the GM making all the decisions about the world and "who cares what the player makes up or how probable it is, just let them run wild and roll with it."

 

[Oofta]

That doesn't even make sense. What is to to "push hard" in a lottery? I'm talking about action declarations, of the sort that a player might make for a character in a RPG.

I also don't see what any of this has to do with the definition of "metagaming" that you set out upthread. Spending a point so that my impassioned plea moves a NPC to aid me doesn't involve anything beyond the words and deeds of my PC (namely, the making of an impassioned plea).

If I really, really want to win a race, ace a test, make that sale, convince that cute girl to go out on a date with me, sometimes it doesn't really matter how hard you try. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. There have been times when I thought I would succeed and did not, times when I didn't expect to be successful but was. If it's a guaranteed thing like the cute girl being my wife when I'm flexible on when we go, there's not really any chance of failure so in a game there would be no roll.

I play a game where in many ways we're trying to emulate real life. If there's a "That was easy" button that I can push to guarantee success when the outcome was guaranteed, it stops emulating life. For me any reaction that does not reflect the characters words, deeds, capabilities or something else from their fictionally established past that grants success is a metagame token. I don't know what else to say. It's a preference in the style of game I want to play when I play a TTRPG. One you don't happen to share. Good thing is, we can both have our cake and eat it to, probably just not at the same table.

 

[pemerton]

‘who cares what the player makes up or how probable it is, just let them run wild and roll with it’ just is not for me.
It might work for you and @pemerton, but I would lose interest, whether as DM or player

But who is saying that "who cares what they make up or how probable it is" is the best way to create fiction.

I mean, do you think that GMs just make up <whatever> without caring about it or how probable it is? Why would players be different?

 

[Emerikol]

Yes… based on control!

This is my point. If we get past this preference shield… if we examine the reasons for it… why does one prefer for only the DM to decide these things… it’s about control. Control of the story or the setting or “realism” or the aesthetics of play.

I'll just say here. If you mean DM control of the setting outside the player characters then yes. That is a playstyle and I want it whether I am a player or a DM. If you mean a person as a human being is obsessed with control then I disagree. Obviously they might overlap but they don't have to overlap.

 

[Emerikol]

Right!

This also applies to @Micah Sweet, in the following sense: if I said that one reason I don't like GM-driven, GM-world oriented RPGing is because it produces flat characters and hollow societies, I think Micah would take that as a criticism of his OSR-ish playstyle. Now I could set about explaining why I disagree - namely, I don't think the point of OSR play is to generate vibrant characters and rich societies, so it's not a criticism that a certain sort of play doesn't achieve something it doesn't care about - but there's no denying that it's something of a criticism of a character to call them "flat".

Describing other people's fiction as "improbable nonsense" is clearly criticism!

And I would heartily disagree with you about flat characters and hollow societies. In fact, what I have experienced is just the opposite. A DM running the world the way you run it would to me not be doing the work and the world would not ring true.