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

[EzekielRaiden]

There's something missing here, I think - did you delete a bit by mistake?

I ask because you say you'd be a great threat to the stance that in-character roleplay is never wasted time but don't say why or how that is.

Pardon, yes. Lost my train of thought and forgot to come back.

My problem is, I hyperfocus, and I get very enthusiastic about things. Any things. I have been rather generously complimented by a friend saying that most people can talk about something forever--I can talk about anything forever. That is of course not quite true, but it's not an egregious exaggeration.

If-when playing with strangers, I can see this all making sense. Well, except the no-phones-at-the-table piece; they (or tablets) are somewhat essential when a lot of the rules etc. are kept online, as ours are. But even there, once you've run with each other for a few months worth of sessions and got to know each other as real-world people maybe the reins can be loosened a bit.

But when playing with friends where "what happens in character stays in character" is the only meta-rule that matters, I say let 'er rip. Some of our most fondly-remembered and laughed-about sessions over the last 40+ years have been those where the party threw down on each other in one way or another and chaos reigned supreme, and I think the game in general would have been greatly lessened without those moments.

I'm also a "do what the character would do" purist; even if it means the character leaves the party or whatever, I can always roll up another one and bring the first one back later in a different party in the same campaign. Failing that, maybe I've just roleplayed myself out of the game - wouldn't be the first time - simply by being true to my character.

Even with friends: I have several friends who cannot do that thing. They cannot not feel some feelings about that. They cannot not get at least a little worked up if one character attacks another, or if one character chews another out, etc. It's not a matter of insufficient self-control or anything. They just feel their feelings very strongly and telling them "it's fine, I'm not attacking YOU" simply does not help. It makes no difference.

I know with 100% certainty I am far from the only person who games with good friends who are in that same position. It's lucky that you have found a whole group of infinitely chill people. Really--you truly are extraordinarily fortunate, in addition to the fact that you've spent many decades refining that group until only those who precisely fit together are still there.

Sometimes, indeed frequently, players both need and want more than that. I'm not at all saying YOU should adopt that rule. But you shouldn't be surprised that you are in a distinct minority for not only not having that rule, but outright thinking it's a bad rule nobody should use. If that were the case, TTRPGs wouldn't survive.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is why others have said it's about trust. I would not play in a group where we weren't implicitly comfortable trusting each other with stuff like this.

If I want to know which version of arbitrary my GM is being, I expect to be able to ask them and receive an honest answer. Worrying that they may be mistaken or lying just isn't a consideration, any more than I worry that they may be a secret arsonist plotting to burn my house down (which is something else I also can't ever know, I just have to take it on faith).

But nothing they tell you is ever anything more than what you already knew. That's my problem here. It's that literally ANY form of oversight, ANYTHING whatosever, is impossible. It's that ANY concern, ANYTHING at all, has exactly two possible choices for the player:

1. Ignore it and soldier on, no matter how concerned you might be
2. Drop the nuclear option and depart the table

That's it. That's all you're allowed. There isn't anything else.

Surely you can see how this forces the player into extreme positions? Their only options are infinite submission or table-flipping!

 

[Lanefan]

Do you also NOT tell them if the Shield spell will help prevent the opponent's attack?

I would assume that if the character has that spell the player can read the spell write-up and (unless the opponent is something bizarre) figure that out on their own.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Err yeah, that’s how faith works (and why
Babel fish are such a threat).

Joking aside, it’s something humans do all the time. It’s how they build relationships, and from those, societies. There is always a risk that someone is lying to you, will betray you, will let you down, but people take the risk anyway. Because if they don’t they are in the jungle, naked and alone, and likely to be eaten by wild animals.

Again: it isn't a matter of the possibility. I understand the possibility is there.

The problem is that the approach is predicated on the fact that (a) the GM can claim at any time that something they're doing is realistic for reasons you aren't and never will be allowed to know, and (b) your two and ONLY two alternatives if you ever DO feel concerned are "put up and shut up" or "flip the table".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I would assume that if the character has that spell the player can read the spell write-up and (unless the opponent is something bizarre) figure that out on their own.

Are you talking the shield spell in your game (which I'm 95% sure isn't any flavor of 5th edition), or the shield spell in 5e? Because I'm pretty sure the question is being asked from the perspective of some version of 5e, where it really would make an awful lot of difference.

 

[SableWyvern]

But nothing they tell you is ever anything more than what you already knew. That's my problem here. It's that literally ANY form of oversight, ANYTHING whatosever, is impossible. It's that ANY concern, ANYTHING at all, has exactly two possible choices for the player:

1. Ignore it and soldier on, no matter how concerned you might be
2. Drop the nuclear option and depart the table

That's it. That's all you're allowed. There isn't anything else.

Surely you can see how this forces the player into extreme positions? Their only options are infinite submission or table-flipping!

Submission to what? A fun game?

I have no choice but to submit to my friends and risk that they are using their visits to my house to plot arson, or move across the country in the night to be safe from their possible machinations.

If I have a concern, I speak to the other party about it. It's simple and easy.

You seem to feel if someone could, theoretically, be doing something wrong, and you can't prove they are not, you must assume the worst. In all seriousness, that sounds to me like a terrible, exhausting, stressful way to live.

In my group, we chill, hangout, do some gaming and have fun. I can't imagine sitting there terrified the GM might secretly be making some decisions without sound reasoning, especially when there are absolutely no cues suggesting such a thing, simply an absence of hard proof they are not.

 

[Lanefan]

Pardon, yes. Lost my train of thought and forgot to come back.

My problem is, I hyperfocus, and I get very enthusiastic about things. Any things. I have been rather generously complimented by a friend saying that most people can talk about something forever--I can talk about anything forever. That is of course not quite true, but it's not an egregious exaggeration.

Ah. I have a couple of friends like that. In the past, I even DMed both of them in the same (very loud!) game; which was fine as long as I could keep them concentrated on the game and not on food or politics or hockey or cats or .........

Even with friends: I have several friends who cannot do that thing. They cannot not feel some feelings about that. They cannot not get at least a little worked up if one character attacks another, or if one character chews another out, etc. It's not a matter of insufficient self-control or anything. They just feel their feelings very strongly and telling them "it's fine, I'm not attacking YOU" simply does not help. It makes no difference.

I know with 100% certainty I am far from the only person who games with good friends who are in that same position. It's lucky that you have found a whole group of infinitely chill people.

Not necessarily chill, but they don't take the game or their characters as seriously as some do; and they've got reasonably thick skins (thick skins are something sadly lacking in the world these days, I think).

Sometimes, indeed frequently, players both need and want more than that. I'm not at all saying YOU should adopt that rule. But you shouldn't be surprised that you are in a distinct minority for not only not having that rule, but outright thinking it's a bad rule nobody should use. If that were the case, TTRPGs wouldn't survive.

There wasn't really any such rule in the early days and from all I can tell, TTRPGs survived and prospered.

 

[Lanefan]

Are you talking the shield spell in your game (which I'm 95% sure isn't any flavor of 5th edition), or the shield spell in 5e? Because I'm pretty sure the question is being asked from the perspective of some version of 5e, where it really would make an awful lot of difference.

I just googled the 5e Shield spell and my point stands: it looks dirt simple, and the player can look it up for themselves.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Again: it isn't a matter of the possibility. I understand the possibility is there.

The problem is that the approach is predicated on the fact that (a) the GM can claim at any time that something they're doing is realistic for reasons you aren't and never will be allowed to know, and (b) your two and ONLY two alternatives if you ever DO feel concerned are "put up and shut up" or "flip the table".

And if you trust the DM, then these are not remotely a problem. And if the DM is not trustworthy, then concrete rules are much easier to bend and exploit than simple good faith.

If you are not prepared to trust, then you are quite literally on your own, in any situation.

And no, flipping the table is not your only option. Humans can read body language, they can tell if the players aren’t buying something. A couple of raised eyebrows are all it takes to cause a DM reevaluate a decision.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I just googled the 5e Shield spell and my point stands: it looks dirt simple, and the player can look it up for themselves.

But you would screw them over if they cast it and it turned out the opponent hit them by more than +4, almost entirely wasting the spell slot? One would think a spellcaster using the spell would have a pretty good idea whether it would work or not, but your statements point in the other direction.

Because that's the thing here. If they hit you by 5 or more, then shield is pointless and using it is almost entirely wasteful. If they hit you by anything less than 5 (e.g. anything between exactly hitting your AC and hitting 4 more than your AC), then shield makes the attack miss, making it very valuable.

In a world where you cannot ever know whether the margin is close enough or not, shield is...not quite worthless, but definitely has gotten an ENORMOUS nerf. Given it doesn't scale at all and is basically just a way to make use of your lower-level spell slots, that might not quite kill it, but it would definitely be far less useful.

You don't have to tell the players what the creature's attack bonus is. You can just say whether shield would be worthwhile or not. Again, I would think a spellcaster who prepares that spell would be pretty good at knowing whether it's useful or not!