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

[Micah Sweet]

More tables like that!

Why? Why can't people just play what they like? It doesn't affect you, so I don't understand this drive to diversify other people's play.

 

[AlViking]

More tables like that!

Why? If you have people to play the games you want to play with why does it matter to you? Why is it "regrettable" that I happen to have found something I really enjoy and don't feel a need to do other things?

 

[TwoSix]

Why? Why can't people just play what they like? It doesn't affect you, so I don't understand this drive to diversify other people's play.

I have 4 tables. In my ideal world, one of them would be D&D focused and the other three open to variable games (a "flex table"). Right now, I have three "D&D tables" and one "flex table".

So it absolutely does affect me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have 4 tables. In my ideal world, one of them would be D&D focused and the other three open to variable games (a "flex table"). Right now, I have three "D&D tables" and one "flex table".

So it absolutely does affect me.

Ok, but I still don't see how you can make your friends like playing different games.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I have 4 tables. In my ideal world, one of them would be D&D focused and the other three open to variable games (a "flex table"). Right now, I have three "D&D tables" and one "flex table".

So it absolutely does affect me.

But that is rare. I have 2 tables I play with and I have open invitations to join other games if I have time. This gives me opportunity to try different systems (and I have always been someone who liked to play different RPGs because that was the norm in my group). But for a lot of people game night just means playing D&D and there isn't anything wrong with that.

 

[TwoSix]

Ok, but I still don't see how you can make your friends like playing different games.

I can't, obviously. I'm lamenting the fact that the world isn't the way I wish it was. I thought that was kind of obvious.

 

[TwoSix]

But that is rare. I have 2 tables I play with and I have open invitations to join other games if I have time. This gives me opportunity to try different systems (and I have always been someone who liked to play different RPGs because that was the norm in my group). But for a lot of people game night just means playing D&D and there isn't anything wrong with that.

There can be "nothing wrong with it" and I still wish it was different. I wish D&D and trad play were just a sizable fraction of the TTRPG play experience, not the majority, that there was no "800 lb gorilla", and trying new systems was the norm, not the exception.

That's not the world we live in. C'est la vie.

 

[hawkeyefan]

They're also more extreme circumstances. If you are charming your players every session, I suspect you'd get complaints that they lack agency.

Sure, the frequency of this stuff will matter how strong the feelings are about it.

The magic part is a big factor for some folks. Hardly a lampshade.

Well, it's a lampshade because setting aside the fictional reason for a moment, as a player, what's happening is loss of control of the character's emotions or actions. That's what people are complaining about.

Accepting it because it's magic? Yeah, that's a lampshade.

I will take a look. But would also encourage you to read old school primer if you haven’t. In OSR play the game part ja important. I think where I sometimes see you guys going in a different direction though (and not a bad one just a different one) is focusing almost exclusively on the game aspect. If you look at what I have said about sandbox play in the past, surprise is an important element and embracing the game is too, but in congress with setting. I am not saying ISR play is all about simulating a world. But you do find a ton of the kind of thing I am talking about in OSR circles and games.

I've read the Old School Primer. Of the two, I prefer the Principia Apocrypha. I think the OSP is more narrow, and tends to focus on dungeon crawling quite a lot.

 

[hawkeyefan]

A lot of people put themselves into danger every day, frequently in completely voluntary activities like mountain climbing. Or a husband giving their wife an unbiased opinion when asked how they look. Truly terrifying.

Sure, absolutely. And sometimes, they freeze up or hide or otherwise flinch or hesitate when they never have before. This stuff happens. The mind is powerful, and fear and other emotions can be powerful. They also influence us physically... so it's not purely mental or emotional as you're saying.

Mundane conversations are also rife with examples of this stuff. There are many times where my emotions got the better of me in dealing with my wife or one of my kids, or other family and friends. Sometimes, we get angry or hurt, and then we blurt something that we immediately know was bad... but that happens.

Sometimes, in some games, I really like this kind of phenomenon to be on the table.

What's contradictory? I give the players information I think the characters should have.

Here's what you said:

The GM doesn't choose to withhold information. They decide what information the characters should reasonably have.

If the GM is deciding what information the characters should reasonably have, then they're also deciding what information they shouldn't have. Which is withholding information.

I could, and frequently do. I think things like holy symbols for the major religions is common knowledge. You need fire to kill trolls, vampires don't like sunlight, any number of things are common knowledge.

Sure, but those are relatively easy to justify. There are many other examples that have come up that the GM could simply provide, but folks are saying should not be.

If I'm envisioning something about things about the environment it's going to be dependent on multiple things. Am I describing something based on a place I've been and have personal experience with or have read about? What makes sense for the current scenario? A well maintained castle wall is going to be very difficult or impossible to climb by design. Other times it's just a judgement call on what's going to be the most fun for the group.

Can it be arbitrary? Sure. I don't care. It's what I think either fits what I've envisioned or will be a fun challenge. Sometimes that means they scrabble up without difficulty other times they have to work a little harder to figure out alternatives or take a chance.

But it sure seems you're trying really hard to conflate "I think it's realistic that you don't always know how easy it is to climb a cliff" with a gotcha "Aha! So it's not based on a real world cliff!"

No, I'm not deploying a gotcha. I'm being very direct. I'm saying that whether or not the cliff is visibly easy to climb, or rather that the difficulty of the climb is not subject to hidden information... is up to the GM.

If a GM chooses to say that there is hidden information that is a factor, then that's a choice. It impacts play and it's on the GM. It's not something that's happening "because realism".

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've read the Old School Primer. Of the two, I prefer the Principia Apocrypha. I think the OSP is more narrow, and tends to focus on dungeon crawling quite a lot.

That is fair. But what I am getting at is a lot of the OSR is not oriented around stuff like PbtA, and there is this focus not just on game but on setting and interacting with the setting. You see that with the dungeon environment in OS Primer for instance, and how things like knowledge would be handled.