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

[Thomas Shey]

That is a tough one because D&D is pretty much RPGs to some people, and so popular.

Yup. Which is why even in the post-VTT period, telling people to go find a game that suits them better can sometimes be a bit--rich.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Rules are not someone. Rules are an algorithm. Is an algorithm better than you?

Sometimes? It at least means the players know how something will likely be resolved rather than finding out I didn't get enough sleep the night before.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm fine with social accountability. I don't need mechanical accountability.

(To make it clear, I'm using "you" here as a stand-in).

But are you really? Ever looked at how often people get incredibly soggy if a player challenges them on a decision?

 

[Lanefan]

See this is what I mean... most of your comments about it are like the above.

What is it that YOU do? Specifically, what do you do? If you're starting a game of Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate... how do you begin? How do you get the players to drive play?

Like I said, if someone asked this about my game of Spire, I could talk about what I did for that game specifically. I wouldn't talk about making organic decisions or making sure that my decisions make sense and all that general stuff. I'd talk about what I did in that game as GM.

Questions like this, had you been asking them of me instead of @Faolyn and taken in tandem with some bits I didn't quote, seem to be asking for a deeper degree of analysis than I'm ever going to give it.

I can't be bothered to think about what I'm doing step by step and analyze everything down to the rivets - I just dive in and do it; and as what I do seems to work out OK the vast majority of the time, little if any further analysis is required.

 

[robertsconley]

So, it's not about forcing anyone - it's about choosing to play with people (including other players) who embrace accountability, want to be held accountable and just as crucially will hold others accountable. It's not all that serious either. We're not holding after action reports or debriefings. Just laying out expectations and being like let's play that game, see how it goes.

And the most effective way of dealing with that is using the same techniques that other disciplines have been using for decades for small group interaction. One of which is that there is no special time to handle issues; it is a process you engage in before, during, and after the shared activity. Another is that you learn to read the circumstances to figure out which techniques will be needed. And the goal of all this is to maintain social harmony so everybody can focus on the group's goals and participate.

When it comes to tabletop RPG-specific elements like worldbuilding, focusing on a narrative, or a setting among others, then that is a good reason for social mechanics to be used as part of a system. These mechanics will form a crucial element in the feel of the campaign and are an important part of why the group enjoys using that system.

But that's not what you are talking about. You are discussing accountability, which is an issue that affects the group as a whole socially. For that, the rules of a game are a poor tool to use, and the best results are had by learning and practicing time-tested techniques designed to promote communication and social harmony within small groups. There is no magic shortcut, it is a commitment that has to be made by the individuals and a skill that can only be honed through practice.

If there are issues with communication and trust, stop focusing on game rules for a fix and learn techniques that teach people how to communicate effectively and build trust. Is that simple and that hard.

 

[Micah Sweet]

(To make it clear, I'm using "you" here as a stand-in).

But are you really? Ever looked at how often people get incredibly soggy if a player challenges them on a decision?

Sometimes even social accountability is hard to accept, true. But I'd still rather deal with a social dispute that can be talked about and resolved than a set of rules constraining your actions right there in the book.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I am confused, what kind of accountability are we talking about here ?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sometimes even social accountability is hard to accept, true. But I'd still rather deal with a social dispute that can be talked about and resolved than a set of rules constraining your actions right there in the book.

I understand the position--but to be real blunt, I'll take the one that seems likely to get the job done more frequently, and expecting people to be willing to accept accountability in a way they view as confrontational (and all evidence I have is that the majority of people will tend to) is not that.

As such, I'd rather the situation simply come up less often, and the less often a GM has to make ad-hoc decisions, the less often it will.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But that's not what you are talking about. You are discussing accountability, which is an issue that affects the group as a whole socially. For that, the rules of a game are a poor tool to use, and the best results are had by learning and practicing time-tested techniques designed to promote communication and social harmony within small groups. There is no magic shortcut, it is a commitment that has to be made by the individuals and a skill that can only be honed through practice.

To make it clear, I don't expect rules to substitute for accountability; I expect them to make it less frequently necessary in the first place, as long as its about error or bad judgment (as contrasted active malignant approaches). I largely agree with the rest of what you posted, but I don't think expecting most people to follow that with any consistency is something that is going to happen most of the time.

 

[Lanefan]

So I stand by what I said: The car's engine is of primary importance. Once the engine meets the minimum functionality necessary for performing the function a car must perform, we can move on to other critical, but still necessarily secondary, concerns.

Likewise, a game system needs its metaphorical "engine" to work correctly, or it fails to perform the function of being a game people can play. Once the core system performs at the minimum level necessary, then we can start focusing on other critical concerns.

The way I see it, you can have all the engine you like but if the wheels are missing then all your car can do is make a lot of smoke and noise while going nowhere.

Which means a car has to be more than just its engine; there's other vital pieces without which it simply can't function as a car. In game-design terms, this maps to using discrete but necessary subsystems rather than just a single core system; and that all of those subsystems have to perform at atleast a basic level in order for the game to be played.

Contrast this with the car stereo, a nice-to-have and yet completely optional subsystem that makes the car nicer to drive but doesn't affect the actual core driving functions in the least.