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

[Manbearcat]

That’s a very self-centred position. Many players enjoy conversing in character with NPCs - including myself. Conversation does not have an “end-game”, the pleasure of the conversation is its own end.

So what you are saying is that PCs should be mind controlled to stop them chatting with NPCs.

I’m in between handling considerably more important matters, but I can’t let this pass unchallenged. This is a ridiculous, embarrassing position that should make you triple take both your thoughts and what you let spill out from your hands as virtual ink.

The person you’re responding to? I’ve GMed several games for this person. This is one of the least self-centered, most thoughtful, most conscientious, most giving to other players (and GM) their earnest interest and creativity players I’ve ever GMed for (in 41 years of it).

Good god man. He’s merely talking about a process of play and resolution that he isn’t interested in and you hit him with calling that (and therefore him) self-centered.

You should really apologize (to him and to yourself for such a ghastly and unwarranted bold accusation and terrible judgement based on a category error as evidence). Go ahead and cue moderation as you like. Don’t care. Thread ban. ENW ban. Whatever. Worth it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Is the possibility of humor sufficient stakes? Because I've seen a lot of in-character discussions where that appears to be the goal.

Sufficient for me? Maybe! Like I said, I'd just expect it to be brief. I joke plenty during play, so I'm certainly not a player or GM who takes the game as some super serious endeavor with no place for humor. But at the same time, there's a reason we're playing, and it's generally not just to laugh.

This gets back to why I don't like the term color. It artificially divides gameplay into "important" and "unimportant" prior to it hitting the table. But it can be hard to know what is going to be important until it has played out. Maybe the conversation develops the characters in a new or unexpected way. Maybe it helps flesh them out to see how they react when their beliefs aren't being tested. Maybe it makes it feel more meaningful when they are tested later--because we've spent so much time with them as they are.

Such a division is not artificial for me. Is there a chance such a scene might evolve into smoething more meaningful? Yes. What I'd likely do is prod a bit... "what is it that you're hoping for?" or "what are you working toward?" or similar. If neither party knows, then I'd wrap it up.

Because any other scene we may have? They're far more likely to turn into something meaningful. So I'd rather spend table time on actual attempts to do so, rather than scenes where it's only a possibility, and likely a slim one.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I’m in between handling considerably more important matters, but I can’t let this pass unchallenged. This is a ridiculous, embarrassing position that should make you triple take both your thoughts and what you let spill out from your hands as virtual ink.

This is a person who objects to role playing - in a role playing game!

 

[Lanefan]

Players can railroad as well.

I've been saying this for ages and have got flayed for it every time. Having not yet read further in the thread, I hope your statement meets a better fate.

Railroading is primarily a state of mind, an approach to the activity that prioritises plot. Failure to understand that leads to the following conflation:


The guards can't be bribed because I don't want them to get past the guards (railroading, plot centric)

The guards can't be bribed because they're loyal to the King.


They both have the same plot effects (you don't get past the guards) but only one of them is railroading.

Thing is, and it's sad to have to bring this up, there's those who would say "But it's the DM's decision to have made those guards loyal to the King, so it's still railroading!"

Because to those people, anything the DM does that isn't forced by a game rule is railroading. It's an untenable and ultimately undefendable position, but that's the definition they use and it makes discussion of the topic an exercise in frustration.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

This is a person who objects to role playing - in a role playing game!

Dude, I'm right here! This is also not what I've said.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sure as hell could've fooled me with the way you and others talk about how harmful and disruptive players are.

As DMs it's what we tend to find and remember. I've had 1 outright toxic player last 10 years he got booted. Turns out he was banned from multiple game stores.

3 more weren't toxic but we're chaos monkeys. I ended campaign in essence hooting them. They got bored from next 2 campaigns they found after me.

That's 4 out of maybe 30-40 odd gamers over a decade+.

Unhappy players they leave. Unhappy DM no game.

Recently I've been getting tagged online from peopke I played with in 1995 about games. Word gets around.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This is a person who objects to role playing - in a role playing game!

That conclusion would seem to me to require a willful misinterpretation of what was said.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Is the possibility of humor sufficient stakes? Because I've seen a lot of in-character discussions where that appears to be the goal.

When I’m a player I usually play it straight. I generally save the comic relief for when I DM. Although I’m still smarting from when a player stole my Dr Strangelove joke seven years ago.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This gets back to why I don't like the term color. It artificially divides gameplay into "important" and "unimportant" prior to it hitting the table. But it can be hard to know what is going to be important until it has played out. Maybe the conversation develops the characters in a new or unexpected way. Maybe it helps flesh them out to see how they react when their beliefs aren't being tested. Maybe it makes it feel more meaningful when they are tested later--because we've spent so much time with them as they are.

This to me is the key. Yes some of these moments, and I wouldn't use the term scene myself in this style of play, the stakes could be everything or nothing. You don't always know until they happen. But for people who find this approach engaging, the possibility that moments like this arise is kind of crucial (the moments with greater stakes and more meaning really stand out as a result; and it is done in a way that approaches a lifelike flow)

 

[Lanefan]

But more importantly, and I apologize for hitting this point again but it's so important: dice rolls in BW aren't determining what characters feel, only whether they're achieving their intent. Even the Steel roll to commit murder in cold blood isn't determining whether the character wants to murder someone in cold blood, only whether they can at that moment.

Which, absent any other information, on a failed roll comes across as the game stone-cold telling me how to play my character.

As the character's player I should have the agency to freely decide in the moment whether or not my character commits that murder. If there's downstream consequences either in-game (e.g. now the cops are after me and I gotta run) or out-of-game (e.g. an alignment check) then so be it, but if player agency is to matter the game shouldn't have mechanisms to prevent me doing something in-character before I've even done it.

And if the game is intentionally designed so as to reduce or remove player agency, why would anyone ever play such a game?