D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[Micah Sweet]

Huh? "I hook up with my contact!" is an action declaration too.

IMO there should be more to it that simply saying it happens regardless of circumstances.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Bigger on the inside isn't exactly a high bar for a beginner spell given examples of somewhat readily available pocket dimension stuff

It's still a pocket dimension! Like, that's pretty crazy from a wizard who was some 1st level spud who was cashed after throwing a few magic darts a few days ago! Characters advance rocket fast by default in D&D. Look at all the stuff capable with 2nd level spells, which are attainable after like a week of adventuring.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Because they care about the integrity of the fiction.

By fiction, you mean the events and shared imaginings of play, right?

Or do you mean the stuff that I imagined last February that doesn't actually impact play except that it is making me say "NO" at times?

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's very easy to get angry when this happens (I empathize fully) but in the end, we're all strangers here, not personal friends or colleagues and so who the hell cares what some random jabronies think about the way I play my elf games?

This is why I no longer read <rpg forum website name omitted to avoid inter forum drama>.

If we don't care what other people think, why are we here?

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I swear, they should just say that every non-spell ability can include fortuitous happenstance magic by way of the force so we can move past the v-tude crowd's willing lack of imagination for how an ability could work. Abilities not working because of DM fiat should occur as often as anti magic zones do (so... next to never).

D&D works a lot better when you don't sit with your arms crossed going "I DARE you to make me buy in!" It's shared fiction, not a real world, unless you're rolling to make sure each PC doesn't slip and fall and die in the shower, come down with ALS, or die from a brain aneurysm, all things that happen to real people but I'm willing to bet the sim crowd never does. By virtue of the players being characters who gain levels rather than dirt farmers who die to a house cat's claw/claw/bite, its a game about extraordinary people doing amazing things. Roll with the coincidence.

If you want to put the shoe on the other foot, I can poke holes in your adventure setups all day long.

All this talk about why the guy with contacts as a character trait can't have contacts reminds me of people grumbling about how they didnt show how Batman got from the pit to Gotham in Dark Knight Rises.

 

[tetrasodium]

Is it really a thing where those domineering players use "the rules" as a club against the poor defenseless DM? Because I've NEVER seen that.

You don't need to look any further than this thread or for examples of how it's done★. Player simply does it while throwing around statements like "well MyChArEcTeR is..."and complains that the GM is being too inflexible. I've even seen exchanges like this one I had very early on in 5e

• I want my criminal contacts to be $forgottenFRfaction(let's say Harper's). Is that ok?
• Your level 1 & the premise of the campaign was that you are all cyran refugees who lost everything° from a refugee camp who got a great offer from a small village in western droaam near the byshek mountains. I don't really care what it's called, but you probably won't really know much more than a minor street gang or something.
• Well they are pretty big
• Maybe to you, but I wouldn't expect much recognition way out there. You really want to focus on building ties with the dragonmarked houses, that's going to be a big part of the campaign
• Many sessions later after ignoring both dragonmarked houses and never trying to interact with the maybeHarpers, player wants to reach out to and name-drop the minor street gang called maybeHarpers that has never once come up then starts a debate over how that's not reasonable for the NPC to have never heard of them and seem to be telling the truth with a 20+ insight check with other players jumping in to agree with how big the Harper's are while totally ignoring the fact that the campaign has never been in FR & the PCs have no reason to have ever heard of it.

"The rules" never need to come up when invoking roleplay vrs rollplay to defend background features

°i do mean everything, not even the normal starting gear. They had some gear given to them based on their class that was described as stuff they managed to find/earn/claim since the war but it was pretty sparse and they got a good bit more over the first several seasons on their way west to droaam

edit: ★ or the post iommediately above this one.

 

[Bae'zel]

IMO there should be more to it that simply saying it happens regardless of circumstances.

My gaming experiences have vastly improved once I started to take a deep breath, pause and then take the time to make sure that my players fully understand the immediate situation and context, and then ensure that I fully understand their intent. Not always easy to do in the heat of the moment, but worth it.

 

[pemerton]

I would read the Criminal background feature not so much as a network as the ability to find a network (or whatever) and make non-hostile contact with it, more or less wherever they are. It doesn't seem out-of-whack to me.

In terms of broad function, this ability seems to be the same as Streetwise skill in Classic Traveller (a RPG from 1977) and Circles in Burning Wheel revised (a RPG from 2004). In mechanical terms, it is a "player fiat" ability rather than a dice roll against a difficulty (which is how the former two abilities work), but to me that seems to be a relatively minor issue, reflecting the fact that D&D 5e doesn't have (and for other reasons doesn't want to have) particularly tight/prescriptive rules for setting social difficulties. (Whereas both Traveller and BW do have clear, prescriptive rules for setting difficulties for Streetwise and Circles.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why not? If it was a spell, it would be guaranteed and no one would think twice about it. Even though magic is merely the fluff that we hang on some game moves.

To me, a PC ability should work as described without needing approval by the GM. If there's clear reason it would not work, okay, so be it... that happens. If there's maybe some doubt about it? We should find a way to explain how it works.

It's a game, right? Before you said you don't like to think of the characters as literary characters... and in the past you've stated you don't like to think of play as a story. Okay... so then let's look at it as a game.

Why should the game mechanics be overridden in this way? Why preserve one player's moves over those of another?

Magic is not "merely" fluff in my games. It is consistent and follows rules. One of the rules it follows is that it allows effects to occur that would be impossible without it (or some equivalent technology, usually unavailable in a fantasy game). I know a lot of folks seem to hate the idea that magic has any advantage over not-magic, but IMO it just does (sorry).

Now, a fair magic system balances that ability with restrictions. In my ideal fantasy games those restriction are real and make in actual play. It's not my fault that WotC decided more people give them money if most of those restrictions went away.

 

[Bae'zel]

If we don't care what other people think, why are we here?

I want to know what people think about games and interpretations of rules and such. I don't give a hoot what they think of my personal interests or tastes.

If I tell a forum that my playstyle and experiences are X, Y and Z, and their responses are hostile or rude, well good for them. Offering actual critique or recommendations to make my experience better is taken to heart.

If you throw personal schoolyard insults at me, welcome to the Ignore Function.