D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AlViking]

Then you do. I absolutely think it can help in a lot of contexts.

How? What changes would you make and why do you think it would matter?

Any number of people clearly feel to the contrary, and that's obvious when you watch it occur.

I've done it a number of times. I think it would be more useful to discuss how to give feedback in a way that is non-confrontational than to argue that D&D should have a fundamentally different design. Especially since what you are pushing would not work for me if I understand what you are proposing.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I think it is sufficiently common that a given NPC feeling that way would not make me say the game was a railroad.

just compare to the track records of PCs who manage to manifest an unbreakable iron will when circumstances try to dictate when their character would do something they don't think they would do.

 

[Faolyn]

Because such a restriction is so ludicrous, I genuinely don't believe anyone would actually hold that belief. It borders on poor-taste parody of actual religious belief.

It would require extensive--dare I say extreme!--effort on the DM's part to make me believe that any being with even a minimal amount of rationality actually does believe that. Certainly, it would take extensive effort on the DM's part to make me believe that any actual religion held such an utterly ridiculous, harmful belief. Making a person responsible for not just their own damnation, but their whole family's, from a single act, is so far beyond the pale...it's a bit hard to describe.

That he made up yesterday. Big difference!

PS all religious beliefs are made up

While technically you're correct, this is a thread about fantasy worlds where demons and evil gods are demonstrably true and it's possible to have societies worship actively evil gods. While most of the time, evil gods in D&D-like games are shown to be evil because they demand sacrifices or their minions are fiends or they tell their worshipers to go forth and kill, I can easily see one showing their evilness by demanding obedience to incredibly strict laws and draconian punishments.

 

[Thomas Shey]

As I said, I had some experience in this, and no, it's not hyperbole.

I'll be blunt here: I've seen enough people still struggle with this, that I'm sticking by my statement. Micah said (correctly) that there's more options for people than there were at one time, but that is not even close to the same as a "non-issue".

This isn't authors I'm talking about. Its people seeking games.

 

[Faolyn]

Again you resort to the "just trust me bro" defense. It doesn't work. I'm sorry, it just doesn't.

Just because I trust someone doesn't mean I think everything they do is perfect. Just because I'm willing to work with someone doesn't mean I cannot then subsequently find an issue.

And, in my extensive experience, social groups which rely overmuch on implication and "social contract" are some of the worst things to navigate. Because you never actually know what's okay. You can't actually communicate, because oh no, that's making rules, we don't need any rules, we can just talk to each other like people!

Rules are useful, and I'm sick and tired of people treating that like it means I'm some kind of paranoid crazy person who cannot socialize or interact or game. Rules are tools. Stop acting like the use of tools is somehow "distrustful".

Especially if you're ever going to then make an argument about DMs trusting player motivations. Because that's rank hypocrisy, if you do do that. And I'm fairly sure you have, at some point.

Or you could act like emotionally mature adults and make rules and communicate where there are issues and still trust one another, both to follow the rules and to apologize if they're accidentally broken and to act in a way that would be acceptable even if there were no rules.

This is the way my table acts, and I refuse to believe that we're the only table of gamers out there who are capable of doing so.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How? What changes would you make and why do you think it would matter?

I've said how. To be clear, I'm not talking about the sandbox/railroad issue here; I mentioned earlier in the thread I think Ezekial's (apparent) position here is overly binary and extreme.

I've done it a number of times. I think it would be more useful to discuss how to give feedback in a way that is non-confrontational than to argue that D&D should have a fundamentally different design. Especially since what you are pushing would not work for me if I understand what you are proposing.

I'm not particularly suggesting D&D do so, per se. I'm saying there is a reason for games to do so, and I think the people resisting having more rigorous and broad rules structures usually do so in arguments by misrepresenting the other side.

 

[robertsconley]

I'll be blunt here: I've seen enough people still struggle with this, that I'm sticking by my statement. Micah said (correctly) that there's more options for people than there were at one time, but that is not even close to the same as a "non-issue".

This isn't authors I'm talking about. Its people seeking games.

I see the difference between our viewpoints.

It's a non-issue in terms of difficulty in finding people to play a campaign using a given system. It still work overall, but the dominance of D&D 5e at the moment doesn't make it any less or more difficult. There are no virtual shelves or floor space that D&D can occupy to crowd out other systems.

The key element is finding where fans of a given system socially connect with each other.

I hope that clarifies the point I was making.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I see the difference between our viewpoints.

It's a non-issue in terms of difficulty in finding people to play a campaign using a given system. It still work overall, but the dominance of D&D 5e at the moment doesn't make it any less or more difficult. There are no virtual shelves or floor space that D&D can occupy to crowd out other systems.

The key element is finding where fans of a given system socially connect with each other.

I hope that clarifies the point I was making.

It helps, but I still think it ignores some practical limits of process, as I explain in my discussion with Micah earlier. In some cases its not just more work: its not possible given location (which is not a physical issue per se, but very much can limit the scheduling issue) and technical situations. And that's ignoring the fact that many people (I'm not one of them to be clear) find remote play actively defeats what they want out of a game.

So in practice, they're just as much limited to what's available locally as they ever were.

 

[Umbran]

I don't expect perfection.

I was responding to a post that cited lack of perfection as the reason to codify stuff.

So, if perfection isn't required, there must be some point that is "good enough" that we can trust GMs to handle things.

And that shows us the problem, doesn't it? Who gets to say what is good enough?

Does anyone here admit to personally not being good enough? Because, if not, this starts looking... kinda egotistical, folks.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It helps, but I still think it ignores some practical limits of process, as I explain in my discussion with Micah earlier. In some cases its not just more work: its not possible given location (which is not a physical issue per se, but very much can limit the scheduling issue) and technical situations. And that's ignoring the fact that many people (I'm not one of them to be clear) find remote play actively defeats what they want out of a game.

So in practice, they're just as much limited to what's available locally as they ever were.

But this issue doesn't go away by having more rigid rules curtailing GM powers or ensuring some kind of cohesive play style, because the issue is you could have virtually any mixture of players available to you in a small pool. Imposing any style of play, and not reaching some kind of accommodation is going to be an issue whether it swings in the direction of wanting something like one of Pemerton's Burning Wheel campaigns or like Rob's majestic wilderlands campaigns. I would agree, if you have a small pool of people to play with, that is going to have to be navigated socially. But having a system that basically just sides with Ezekiel or Pemerton isn't going to solve that problem because that might mean now Rob and @AlViking are stuck playing games they might not want to play.

I would say if people are stuck with a small pool of players, they need to find a medium or approach that works for everyone. I do think though for most people, it is getting easier to reach more gamers and have more options. . At least for me I have seen a very big change in that respect. I used to be limited to local gaming groups, and those I either had to find through my circle of friends or take my chances at a game store or comic shop. Now I can find local gamers online, and I find online game groups (which really frees me up). It won't be this way for everyone, and some people won't want online games because they prefer gaming in person.

But this is also why I don't impose my play stye on GMs. I game with a circle where about half the people will also step forward and run a game from time to time. If I were in a group where Pemerton was a GM, I wouldn't be a jerk and hassle him for running Burning Wheel, while I demand Majestic WIlderlands. I'd let him run the game the way he is comfortable running and hope to gain something from the experience. Even when I gamed with Rob, he doesn't run things exactly the way I do. But I wanted to see how he ran the session. I have another GM in our group who runs Savage Worlds and likes to it more around set pieces in a kind of Robin Laws style structured around scenes. I have a blast in those campaigns.