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

[zakael19]

And I can only cry.

Because it means people think rules are stupid bad things that should be destroyed.


Sure they are. There's literally not a single difference between the two, as you've presented it. The system is meaningless, because anything-and-everything is subject to the DM's continuous rewriting. That's the whole point of rulings-not-rules. There never are rules. Ever. Period. There are only rulings, which can change, because that's explicitly the point. Having a ruling means you don't have a rule.


How is it possible for the DM to present every possible ruling in advance? The vast majority WILL be made up on the spot as the game progresses, and good luck even getting a written-down version of it!

Note that the “rulings not rules” is not quite that in intent as seen in the more rule light systems? It’s more supposed to be “we want to maximize player problem solving instead of looking to a procedure or ability at all times, so we reduced the number of explicit rules. DM - if a situation arises that you need to make a judgement call about how something works, give a quick ruling in an impartial manner. If you think it will be a frequent recurrence, write it down as a rule.”

The 2024 DMG centers “table fun” as the criteria for how you should rule, which is … interesting. OSR stuff tends to center impartiality and simplicity.

 

[Maxperson]

i don't see why not, it's abstracting a situation of someone who we're not performing with different capabilities to ours in a situation we're not directly in, how is the value of having nuanced combat mechanics actually fundamentally different from the value of nuanced social mechanics beyond personal preference? you've only labeled social mechanics 'lead' because you don't like them.

So is playing Civ II and Sim Ant, but people wouldn't call those the same thing even though they are both simulation games with abstractions.

Just because you are abstracting two different things doesn't make them the same or mean that the same rules would be good for both.

people can say things to the effect of 'but we can RP the conversation at the table' but players don't have the capabilities of their characters, i think it's a massive double standard when the barbarian or druid with -1 persuasion starts spouting out debate club-esc dialogue and the player's just 'well i'm RPing my character', hey i can deadlift some real heavy barbels, how does that affect my stick-limbed wizard's athletics capabilities?

Non-magical mind control always zeroes out my agency. Combat mechanics for the most part don't.

 

[AlViking]

I would also point out that 99.99% of the time, the difficulty of climbing something in D&D isn't anywhere near climbing something like El Capitan. But, this little sidebar about climbing does nicely illustrate why D&D has magic rules to bypass these sorts of challenges. I'm going to bet dollars to donuts that any group facing a climb of that difficulty would simply bang out a teleport spell (or something similar) and not worry about it at all.

Go go magic system FTW.

If they have teleport, which is a pretty significant resource cost at a level 7 spell slot. They are teleporting to an area they've never viewed so they are only on target on a 74-100. Considering that being off target with a 54-73 could be just as bad, I don't personally like those odds.

 

[zakael19]

I mean clearly spider climb or fly or something similar would be the actual answer here. Talk about nitpicking .

 

[Micah Sweet]

And as far as I'm concerned, this is...really not true. Like at all.

As far as I'm concerned, the DM is relying on a mountain of evidence they'll never actually be telling the PCs, because it's all in their prewritten setting bible sitting over in their office (or wherever they keep their stuff), which "justifies" everything they do, but can't be read by players because that would be the spoiler to end all spoilers. (And, to be clear, I wouldn't want to read it! I don't want spoilers! But it's a bit hard to swallow "you just have to trust me, it's in my notes that I can't show you".)

The vast majority of things DMs think in their heads and describe in their notes never actually appear before the players directly--and thus never get talked about in more than extremely oblique ways. But all of it can still affect (or even "determine"!) DM decision-making.

The players only hear what the DM says out loud. But the DM thinks a million things that never escape their lips--and write a million more that likewise never get heard by players.

Can we just say that this style of gaming and the players and (especially) the GMs that enjoy it simply aren't for you and move on? You seem determined to stay on the attack here, regardless of insisting otherwise, IMO. I expressed my lack of enjoyment in Narrativist gaming a while back and it really feels quite freeing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's precisely the point. I was asked what it would look like from the player's perspective, so I answered from the player's perspective. You can hardly fault me for doing precisely what someone asked me to do!


Okay, but that's being pretty blatantly dismissive of the player's problem. Which is, as I said, something that makes that problem worse. Having your seemingly 100% legitimate grievances dismissed with "I know better, and you aren't allowed to know better yet" is...I mean, it comes across as basically not caring at all what I think or feel, treating my concerns as a trivial nothing to be dismissed, not a serious problem that needs to be addressed before it begins actually damaging trust.

In the very act of dismissing it this way, you have made the problem worse, not better!

Edit: And, to loop this back around to the railroading discussion, how on Earth could a player tell the difference between this and railroading?

Because this was, pretty openly, the DM stonewalling the player without explaining herself. What, functionally, from a player's perspective, is the difference between being stonewalled because there's secret DM information the player isn't allowed to know, and stonewalling because the DM will only accept one or a small handful of pathways and everything else is just a non-starter?

Knowing that there's a reason why you don't understand the full situation that falls within the parameters of setting logic? It works for me.

And obviously, trusting that the GM isn't lying to you when they say this.

 

[AlViking]

I mean clearly spider climb or fly or something similar would be the actual answer here. Talk about nitpicking .

I mentioned spider climb or levitate as possible options. I just don't see those spells being prepared all that often. That and I'm perfectly okay if the group considers options, especially ones that use up resources.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I just...I just don't understand why this style of play is so dismissive of player concerns.

I gave what I thought was a very reasonable, very approachable, invested-in-the-lore, friendly, productive player, trying their hardest to cooperate and get along. Your answer seems to be, "You're a bad fit. Goodbye." How is that in any way productive? I just don't get it. This seems so excessively exclusionary!

Every playstyle (including your preference and everyone else's) excludes those who don't care for it for one reason or another. This is why there is more than one.

 

[bloodtide]

The result being turtling behavior. If every time you act in any way that's not totally safe there's a 1% chance of being completely hosed, most players will rapidly, and correctly, conclude that sitting tight is the best policy. After all, rolling up Snardly XII is not that exciting...

This type of play is only for a few players. It sure not for most players in general.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And I can only cry.

Because it means people think rules are stupid bad things that should be destroyed.


Sure they are. There's literally not a single difference between the two, as you've presented it. The system is meaningless, because anything-and-everything is subject to the DM's continuous rewriting. That's the whole point of rulings-not-rules. There never are rules. Ever. Period. There are only rulings, which can change, because that's explicitly the point. Having a ruling means you don't have a rule.


How is it possible for the DM to present every possible ruling in advance? The vast majority WILL be made up on the spot as the game progresses, and good luck even getting a written-down version of it!

To me having a ruling means you have a rule, once the ruling is made. Consistency is important.

And IMO rulings are for corner cases and other unusual situations anyway, and only occur in play when the incident requiring them occurs. When they happen outside of active play it's a houserule.