D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[pemerton]

I suspect if I played in your game I would not experience those things. And I accept that if you played in mine you might not experience those things. There is something in how we perceive the world that affects how we judge these things and we both are wired very differently.

I doubt that we're wired very differently. We are probably used to different RPGs. But I think if you played in a game of the sort that I play and GM, you would experience a rich world with surprised, revelations and unexpected coincidence. And NPCs to whom your PC forms connections.

 

[Mort]

Change "need" to "are." There don't need to be exceptions. There ARE exceptions. I'm wondering why you think backgrounds should be immune when nothing else in the game is. D&D is an exceptions based system. You can't breathe underwater unless you are one of the rare exceptions(triton/sea elf/water breathing spell). You can cast spells unless you are in front of a beholder or in an anti-magic zone. You can hurt creatures with this sword unless you can't hurt this particular monster with swords.

Why should backgrounds be the one thing in the game immune to exceptions that cause them not to function now and then?

It's not about immune to exceptions. It's about, barring an absurd result, not just a result inconvenient to the DM, the feature should work.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I doubt that we're wired very differently. We are probably used to different RPGs. But I think if you played in a game of the sort that I play and GM, you would experience a rich world with surprised, revelations and unexpected coincidence. And NPCs to whom your PC forms connections.

So why don't you two play together??? Seems the easiest way to bridge the gap between you two???

 

[Maxperson]

It's not about immune to exceptions. It's about, barring an absurd result, not just a result inconvenient to the DM, the feature should work.

I haven't seen anyone say that they would bar it for the sake of convenience. Only when it makes sense for an exception to the ability to happen. Convenience really has nothing to do with it.

 

[mamba]

It's not about immune to exceptions. It's about, barring an absurd result, not just a result inconvenient to the DM, the feature should work.

the inconvenience is so minimal that I doubt anyone would care to do anything because of it

 

[Maxperson]

the inconvenience is so minimal that I doubt anyone would care to do anything because of it

Yeah. As the DM there's nothing either convenient or inconvenient about a message. It just is part of the game, or not if the circumstances are such that it doesn't make sense for the ability to work.

 

[pemerton]

I think I'm at least gesturing (wildly, subtly, frantically) at the idea that in a world where magic works the way it's presumed to in most D&D 5e settings, things that seem as though they'd work in-game the same way they would in the real world might not in fact work the same way they do in the real world. In other world, internal setting logic might mean the laws of reality in the game world aren't the same as in the real world, so using the real world as your basis will be an error.

I assume you're thinking that, say, caravan masters have access to communication magic? Stuff like that?

 

[Mort]

Yeah. As the DM there's nothing either convenient or inconvenient about a message. It just is part of the game, or not if the circumstances are such that it doesn't make sense for the ability to work.

That right there is the difference.

My position, the ability is a minor benefit that should mostly work, even if the DM has to bend to make it so. That scenario where the PC is in a strange town, so what, the PC can figure it out

Your position (and presumably @mamba 's) the ability works only if, according to the DM, it makes sense for it to do so. Meaning the DM will not accommodate it or try to make it or
fit. Much less permissive.

 

[pemerton]

The world needs to behave in ways the players can predict, so they can make decisions on some reasonable basis. Sometimes--mostly in matters of classical physics--this means things in the game world behave pretty much the way they do in the real world. Other times, this means they behave in ways more consistent with the game rules.

I don't agree re physics. D&D worlds permit perpetual motion (via "magic"), and there's no reason to think that universal gravitation (as opposed to the local phenomenon of objects falling to earth) is true.

 

[Pedantic]

I assume you're thinking that, say, caravan masters have access to communication magic? Stuff like that?

Careful. That's the first step on the dark path that leads to extrapolating setting norms from specific magical effects.