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

[Faolyn]

So why is it okay to have rules which tell you your character just dies, but not okay to have rules which (say) tell you your character thoughtthey knew what they were doing better than they actually did? Both of those are entirely real-world events, and the latter is (thankfully!) much more common than the former.


Why is it okay to have rules which tell you your character flubbed their attempt to convince a shopkeeper to cut them a deal, but not okay to have rules which tell you your character flubbed their attempt to adhere to their (entirely mundane) oath against consuming intoxicants?

Why is it okay to have rules which tell you that your character's ability to tell if someone lied to them failed when they really needed it, but not okay to have rules which tell you that your character's courage failed when they really needed it?

All of these situations seem to follow the same exact logic, but the former is somehow acceptable because...it was what games did in the past, while the latter is unacceptable because past games didn't? I don't see why "when in Earth history this mechanic first appeared" makes any difference in the degree or nature of agency loss to these mechanics.

In GURPS, many disadvantages have control ratings, which you have to roll under in order to resist succumbing to the disadvantage. For instance, Addition (9) means you have to roll under a 9 on 3d6 to avoid having to give in and use the substance, while Addiction (15) means you have to roll under a 15. Obviously, a control rating of 9 means you're far more likely to succumb to the addiction and as a result, is worth more points than taking the same disad with a control rating of 15. Other disadvantages, such as Vow, lack control ratings; you either follow them or you don't, and if you don't, you suffer whatever consequences are listed in the disad's description.

But here's the thing: The player chose to take that disadvantage. They specifically made their character to be an addict or decided that their character had sworn a vow.

In the rare occasion that someone gets a disadvantage after character creation, it's nearly always because the player chose to act in a way that caused their character to gain that disadvantage. They chose to take the drug or swear a vow. There might be a roll to see if the character actually becomes addicted (I can't remember what GURPS does), but the actual choice was up to the player. (And the few times the player didn't choose it, I'd wager most of the time it's due to an unusual outside influence, like a curse, which can eventually be broken.)

If a GURPS GM were to have the bad guy tie the PC down, force-feed them drugs, and then force the PC to take the Addiction disadvantage, and the player wasn't OK with that chain of events occurring, people would consider that person to be a bad GM and would be telling the player(s) to kick the GM out of the group.

Consent is important.

If you tell the player that their courage failed them and it's not because of an unusual outside influence that can be ended or fought against, then you are forcing them to act in a specific way without their consent.

(In D&D, nearly every event that would give you the frightened condition is due to an unusual outside influence--magic, poison, or being exposed to an otherworldly creature. And they all require you to fail a saving throw to succumb, and most of them allow you to make new saves periodically to end the condition early. No purely mundane events from mundane beings cause a character to take the frightened condition. However, a player can still choose to act frightened because of a mundane event or being, however.)

If you are choosing to play a game where your character can be made to act in certain ways without your consent, and you're OK with that, then go ahead. Have fun. But understand that for many of us, that is Not OK. And understand that for many of us, a game that's supposed to be about player-driven stories but doesn't allow for actual player agency is very, very weird and even hypocritical.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

Sure. I have just found you meet with more success if you approach it in a positive way. I've been selling non-D&D games for a long time. My first game was a counter terrorism game, like a ripped from the headlines 24. My second was a mafia RPG. I even had a game inspired by I, Claudius and the 12 Caesars where Caligula is really a god. I've only actually done one standard fantasy RPG. And since about 2016 I've been mostly doing the wuxia RPG (or variations of it). I am not swimming in the same RPG ecosystem you are, but I have a lot of the same challenges in terms of recruitment, getting people to try to the system, and even getting people to play the genre. Wuxia is an easier sell now, but back then it was more challenging. And I realized finding points of commonality was an approach that worked. I also had the sense this is what made PbTA so successful (it was a new approach to play but one that leaned into many of the things found in D&D and the OSR). At least games like Dungeon World appear to be leaning into aspects of D&D. I found with wuxia for example, a lot of people would avoid things like dungeons, but those are actually part of the genre, so allowing people to do some of that D&D type stuff, but with a lot of the other wuxia elements, was pretty effective at getting people on board. Obviously a lot has changed in general too making it easier (the genre is more widely known these days).

The reality is when I want someone to try my game, for a lot of people that is also me asking them to not play D&D (at least for that session).

 

[AlViking]

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.



Here's what you said:


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.



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.



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".

I don't always care about realism as a GM. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I care about immersion and the world feeling realistic to me when I'm a player. That includes not always knowing everything I could possibly want to know. What's most important when I GM is whether or not I and my players are enjoying that game. What you enjoy, what I and my players enjoy may be different and I'm tired of giving the same answers to the same questions.

 

[Pedantic]

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.

I'd be a lot happier if the big game hadn't gone so far into generic resolution, it's a real waste of the potential design and publishing power they could be using to put out rules. What's the point of being the biggest game if you're not going to gush forth content?

 

[CreamCloud0]

I would like to believe that I can control my emotions when I get into a disagreement with my wife.

i don't mean this at all as a personal jab but i think lots of people would like to believe they could control their emotions, however i think it's far too common that they just don't end up being able to do that, heated tempers can prevail far too often in arguments and we end up saying and doing things we later regret, and it's not just anger, our emotions can impair our judgement in a vast number of ways and situations.

add in the fact adventurers tend to live lives and encounter a great number of situations far outside the normal scope of typical experiences of the people who play TTRPGs which makes it even harder to judge their emotional responses to these things accurately.

edit: in general i am in favour of implementing social encounter rules and normalizing effects from nonmagical influences.

 

[Bedrockgames]

i don't mean this at all as a personal jab but i think lots of people would like to believe they could control their emotions, however i think it's far too common that they just don't end up being able to do that, heated tempers can prevail far too often in arguments and we end up saying and doing things we later regret, and it's not just anger, our emotions can impair our judgement in a vast number of ways and situations.

add in the fact adventurers tend to live lives and encounter a great number of situations far outside the normal scope of typical experiences of the people who play TTRPGs which makes it even harder to judge their emotional responses to these things accurately.

We are getting pretty philosophical. I think we feel things but we also have some measure of control. When I was a kid, if I said to my dad "You are making me so mad!" he would always respond "No, you are choosing to be angry". I think there is truth in that. There is this welling up of emotion we may feel, but we do choose how we react to that and we also can choose to let our anger fully vent or to put a stop to it. I am not saying it is as simple as 'don't be angry'. But I think AI is right that you can be mindful of what you are feeling and learn to be calm. That is honestly part of learning to get along with people. And I say this as someone who has a temper. But over the years, I learned, if I give into my temper, that is on me.

That said, this is just my opinion. When it comes to how games should handle anger, that is open to all kinds of approaches, depending on what people want to explore.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Do you not understand the difference between a character's physical and mental states? I cannot control what happens if I fall off my roof while cleaning the gutters. I would like to believe that I can control my emotions when I get into a disagreement with my wife.

It's the difference of accepting I cannot control the world around me but I can control my reaction to it. Even in real life I think it's healthy to feel a sense of control over how I react even if I accept that the control isn't guaranteed. But when playing a fantasy game? Why not let me exercise that control so that in real life maybe I get a little better at it.

I'm reminded of the old X-Files TV show, there was an episode where some regular but nerdy guys were helping Mulder. At a certain point the nerdy guy goes "I learned a thing or two about courage playing D&D." It may have been put in there as a bit of comedy but it really resonated with me. Playing D&D, being in control of my characters emotional state? It's helped me do the same at times. But now I'm rambling and I really do have other things that need doing.

Not so much of a comment on you, because I have not really had much discussion with you. But, many many posters then go on to assert that such a setup is part of a more realistic sort of play. I personally just find that it feels inauthentic and very artificial, gamist really. Also, games like 1000 Arrows, which really stresses finding out what sort of stuff you got, leads to a lot less stereotyped kind of rote play. I think trad sorts of play need not be uninteresting, but it is more work and often not all the participants are able/willing to pull it off. Something like DW just makes it a lot easier for me.

 

[The Firebird]

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".

It adds to the feeling of verisimilitude the players get.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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



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'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.

I don't set aside the fictional reason. That's the most important part to me. I get that you don't agree, and that's fine.

 

[Faolyn]

But I expect you see how entirely arbitrary the division is between what you are accepting and not accepting, right? You seem (here I'm guessing a bit based on common reactions I've seen) entirely comfortable with the idea you don't have total control over, say, making an effective sword stroke, but you do have total control over your character's lack of squeamishness about spiders.

I propose that these dividing lines are hold overs from wargame influenced pawn stance classic play, and their assumed applicability to more fiction-centered types of play was never really considered or understood until people like Edwards came along and pointed out that it could be problematic depending on what you are trying to do.

I would venture that a commonly held viewpoint in many circles is that a lot of the community holds certain attitudes precisely because it doesn't want to do that sort of examination.

There's nothing arbitrary about the divide: one is about one's learned abilities and the other is about one's state of mind--emotions and thoughts. The things that make a person a person. I don't want a game that removes my personhood.

Since we've been talking about Burning Wheel, my question is: does it require a roll upon first seeing someone to see if you fall in love (or lust) with that person? If not, why not? Surely that's just as important for a character?