D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[prabe]

Nobody is saying that.

There's been at least one poster who embraced blithe negation of PC abilities, so at least one person is saying exactly that.

But your point (in another post I'm not quoting here) is vaild: If an ability isn't going to work, it needs to be an exception, and (as we absolutely agree!) the GM needs to convey why it's an exception adequately, so there's buy-in from the player who's not getting to do what they thought they would. Also (as we absolutely agree!) it's better if the player can be led to see the "no" before the GM says it.

 

[Maxperson]

There's been at least one poster who embraced blithe negation of PC abilities, so at least one person is saying exactly that.

I missed that. They said that they look for ways to say no? Would you link the post in question so that I can see the context?

But your point (in another post I'm not quoting here) is vaild: If an ability isn't going to work, it needs to be an exception, and (as we absolutely agree!) the GM needs to convey why it's an exception adequately, so there's buy-in from the player who's not getting to do what they thought they would. Also (as we absolutely agree!) it's better if the player can be led to see the "no" before the GM says it.

Sure. In my experience the exception is usually apparent and the player either expects the ability not to work or thinks it very likely that it will end up not working, but isn't 100% sure. It's very rare that I run into a situation where the DM and player(s) think totally opposite things, in which case it's usually a misunderstanding about something that is happening or happened in the fiction and get cleared up quickly.

 

[prabe]

I missed that. They said that they look for ways to say no? Would you link the post in question so that I can see the context?

I am perfectly fine with blithely negating it

(The conversational thread that's from is emphatically over, but you can track it from there, I think.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

If the answer is always or even often no to seemingly reasonable requests there is no functional difference. A DM can always find some reason to say no.

What is reasonable can vary.

 

[prabe]

What is reasonable can vary.

Plausibly. I think some GMs will tend to start from "no," while others will start from "yes," in response to functionally similar player asks. Whether the differences there are more about the GMs or about the players is ... difficult to tell. Clearly some GMs expect players to be more reasonable, while others expect players to be more un-; my suspicion/expectation is that most GMs get the player behavior they expect.

 

[Maxperson]

(The conversational thread that's from is emphatically over, but you can track it from there, I think.)

That statement isn't the same as "looking for ways to say no." It's more along the lines of, "I have no qualms saying no when I feel that an exception is happening."

Having followed much of @mamba's conversation here and having had many of my posts about exceptional circumstances warranting a no, I feel pretty confident that he is not looking for ways to say no to PC abilities.

 

[prabe]

That statement isn't the same as "looking for ways to say no." It's more along the lines of, "I have no qualms saying no when I feel that an exception is happening."

Having followed much of @mamba's conversation here and having had many of my posts about exceptional circumstances warranting a no, I feel pretty confident that he is not looking for ways to say no to PC abilities.

I'm inclined to describe "blithe negation" as "looking to say no," but I'm also not looking to resuscitate a dead argument.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm inclined to describe "blithe negation" as "looking to say no," but I'm also not looking to resuscitate a dead argument.

And since I didn't say it, I'm not really invested enough to argue with you over it, so we can just agree to disagree.

 

[mamba]

(The conversational thread that's from is emphatically over, but you can track it from there, I think.)

quote the whole sentence then

I am perfectly fine with blithely negating it, in fact I will do so in session 0 already

and lo and behold what I replace that feature with is what some who defend it here actually use it like, namely they have an easier time establishing contacts rather than knowing messengers all over the universe. Interestingly that is exactly what you do too…

So yeah, stop taking things out of context and essentially lying about my position, you really should know better, we had enough exchanges in this thread

Here is a direct reply to you

and I think you are completely off, because how you actually use the feature and how I use it are pretty similar.

You just ignore what it says and do what you feel is right, and I point out that the feature is poorly designed / written in addition to using it basically like you do

guess you continue to be completely off in your understanding of the ‘other side’

 

[mamba]

.