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

[AlViking]

Oh FFS.

This is why these conversations are so freaking exhausting. Instead of trying to actually engage the point being made, people will endlessly nit-pick. How many movement magic spells/effects are there in the game? Levitate, fly, shape changing, summonings, character abilities, hell, flat out ability of some characters to straight up fly.

Yes, I said teleport. That's true. But instead of taking the point, which is that the reason D&D is so high magic now is because it allows the players to see inside the black box and make decisions with full knowledge of the results, you're going to focus on the example.

In the post that started this I mentioned levitate and spider climb as options to avoid the challenge and that I was okay with that. Guess I should have linked back to it since it seems like you may have missed. I was just pointing out that teleport isn't as powerful as some people say.

 

[Hussar]

At what point does it stop being conservatism and turn into a simple preference for one game over another?

When the preference is presented as such and not presented as objective fact. The statement wasn't "I like complex combat/simple social" rules. It was presented as "It is impossible to have a game where social rules are as complex as combat rules" which is 100% false. There are a number of games out there that use a single resolution system, making social resolutions exactly as complicated as combat resolutions.

I made absolutely no claims about which one I or anyone else prefers.

 

[AlViking]

Counter anecdote time.

I was playing in a D&D campaign about the same time, and the DM was using Keep on the Borderlands as a base. No problems. The DM was very adamant that this was a sandbox type campaign with the players having a lot of freedom. The group decided to rob the jewel merchant in the Keep. We spent most of an entire session planning the heist, doing tons of RP in character, learning the layout of things, getting schedules all that sort of thing. We wrap up the session with the plan in place and we would play it out the next session. All week the players are talking about this. The entire group is really excited.

Next week starts and the jewel merchant has closed up shop and left in the middle of the night. No warning, no note, absolutely no trail left behind. Can't follow him, he's got too much of a lead.

Now, I've told this story before on these boards and had multiple people say that the DM is not, in any way, railroading here. This was just the "objective" results of the campaign. The group quit on the spot. We all, as a group, thanked the DM politely and walked. The DM continued to have quite successful games with other groups that swore up and down that she wasn't railroading.

So, no, I really don't think terrible DM's are all dysfunctional, socially inept individuals. And, again, this is why I talk about, from the player's perspective, good and bad DM's look and do exactly the same thing and it's often impossible to tell the difference.

I would say you had a bad DM. This one instance isn't necessarily what I qualify as a railroad but it was definitely a cheesy way to stop your plan from succeeding and something I never would have done. Even if the proprietor somehow figured out you were coming the most I would have done was post extra guards and confirm somehow who had ratted you out. On the other hand the jeweler finding out you were coming was probably highly unlikely in the first place, sounded like the DM just didn't want it to happen which violates sandbox 101.

 

[Hussar]

My guess it it becomes conservatism if that preference is for an older system or way of doing things.

No, again, it becomes conservatism when that preference is presented as REQUIRED. Thus the word "need" in that bit everyone seems to be quoting while ignoring the original quote that spawned the reply.

 

[Hussar]

Well, ish. I'm not sure you can have a tactical combat-heavy game that has simply rules for combat--and a lot of people want their combat to be tactical in nature.

Again, the goalposts are on roller skates.

The statement was that all RPG's MUST have rules that are complex in combat, simple outside of combat.

That is flat out not true. There are all sorts of RPG's where that isn't true.

Again, I make zero claims of preference here. I am ONLY responding to the statement that it is impossible to have a system where non-combat rules are as complex as combat rules.

 

[Hussar]

I would say you had a bad DM. This one instance isn't necessarily what I qualify as a railroad but it was definitely a cheesy way to stop your plan from succeeding and something I never would have done. Even if the proprietor somehow figured out you were coming the most I would have done was post extra guards and confirm somehow who had ratted you out. On the other hand the jeweler finding out you were coming was probably highly unlikely in the first place, sounded like the DM just didn't want it to happen which violates sandbox 101.

That was how we interpreted it at the time, to be sure. That was the first time I'd ever dropped a game or a DM. I'd put up with so may absolutely execrable DM's in the years prior this. She, to be fair, was far from the worst.

But, that misses the point though. I've told that anecdote before and been told, by multiple people, that I was 100% in the wrong here that I should absolutely trust in the DM and that there was nothing wrong with what the DM did.

Which makes arguments of "Oh, just trust your DM" very hard to swallow. Because, in so many cases, "Just trust your DM" led to absolutely garbage experiences because, so many times, you can't really tell the difference between Good DM and Bad DM.

 

[Micah Sweet]

At what point does it stop being conservatism and turn into a simple preference for one game over another?

About 5,000 or so posts ago.

 

[Faolyn]

Counter anecdote time.

I was playing in a D&D campaign about the same time, and the DM was using Keep on the Borderlands as a base. No problems. The DM was very adamant that this was a sandbox type campaign with the players having a lot of freedom. The group decided to rob the jewel merchant in the Keep. We spent most of an entire session planning the heist, doing tons of RP in character, learning the layout of things, getting schedules all that sort of thing. We wrap up the session with the plan in place and we would play it out the next session. All week the players are talking about this. The entire group is really excited.

Next week starts and the jewel merchant has closed up shop and left in the middle of the night. No warning, no note, absolutely no trail left behind. Can't follow him, he's got too much of a lead.

Now, I've told this story before on these boards and had multiple people say that the DM is not, in any way, railroading here. This was just the "objective" results of the campaign. The group quit on the spot. We all, as a group, thanked the DM politely and walked. The DM continued to have quite successful games with other groups that swore up and down that she wasn't railroading.

So, no, I really don't think terrible DM's are all dysfunctional, socially inept individuals. And, again, this is why I talk about, from the player's perspective, good and bad DM's look and do exactly the same thing and it's often impossible to tell the difference.

To me, that does totally sound like railroading. I fully understand you dropping the game. I would have been really upset as well.

But, counter, counter example: I ran a game once (yet another Ravenloft game; I've put a moratorium on them because I've run too many and there are other horror games I want to play), the players were en-route from point A to point B (they either really wanted to go to point B, or they really wanted to get away from point A; can't remember), , and I had them notice weird, spooky things in the woods. One of the players said "I keep on walking and wave goodbye to the nice plot hook." (This guy has since moved on to games that were more to his taste.)

You said the game was based on Keep On the Borderlands. I've never played it or read it, but Wikipedia says it's about investigating caves filled with monsters. To me, unless you can do a lot more than just fight those monsters, a heist sounds a lot more interesting. But it's entirely possible that all those other people who have gamed with her were never railroaded by her because they wanted to go fight the monsters, while you just waved goodbye to the nice plot hook. But where I sighed and tossed that encounter away, she tried to force you back on track.

(I could be completely wrong, of course. Maybe she set up the heist as a possible event and then pulled it away at the last minute because of Reasons. I dunno.)

 

[AlViking]

That was how we interpreted it at the time, to be sure. That was the first time I'd ever dropped a game or a DM. I'd put up with so may absolutely execrable DM's in the years prior this. She, to be fair, was far from the worst.

But, that misses the point though. I've told that anecdote before and been told, by multiple people, that I was 100% in the wrong here that I should absolutely trust in the DM and that there was nothing wrong with what the DM did.

Which makes arguments of "Oh, just trust your DM" very hard to swallow. Because, in so many cases, "Just trust your DM" led to absolutely garbage experiences because, so many times, you can't really tell the difference between Good DM and Bad DM.

What can I say? I disagree with whoever told you that. Now ... if the question was "is this a railroad" then a single incidence of a bad call by a DM doesn't make it a railroad in my opinion. It's certainly something I would have called a timeout on and explained my displeasure. Hopefully the DM has an explanation (not that I can think of one) or admits it was a mistake. If things like this continued I would quit the game.

 

[AlViking]

To me, that does totally sound like railroading. I fully understand you dropping the game. I would have been really upset as well.

But, counter, counter example: I ran a game once (yet another Ravenloft game; I've put a moratorium on them because I've run too many and there are other horror games I want to play), the players were en-route from point A to point B (they either really wanted to go to point B, or they really wanted to get away from point A; can't remember), , and I had them notice weird, spooky things in the woods. One of the players said "I keep on walking and wave goodbye to the nice plot hook." (This guy has since moved on to games that were more to his taste.)

You said the game was based on Keep On the Borderlands. I've never played it or read it, but Wikipedia says it's about investigating caves filled with monsters. To me, unless you can do a lot more than just fight those monsters, a heist sounds a lot more interesting. But it's entirely possible that all those other people who have gamed with her were never railroaded by her because they wanted to go fight the monsters, while you just waved goodbye to the nice plot hook. But where I sighed and tossed that encounter away, she tried to force you back on track.

(I could be completely wrong, of course. Maybe she set up the heist as a possible event and then pulled it away at the last minute because of Reasons. I dunno.)

The reason I would have talked to the DM is that they may simply have not known how to handle the heist. The right way to handle it would have been to tell people that it was a linear campaign and as such there would be limited options at time. When the group got the idea of doing a heist they should have just stopped everyone and explained they weren't up to it. Absolute worst case, she should have admitted that she was over her head on it the next session an apologized.

My point is that everyone screws up now and then. It still wasn't the right approach.