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

[Micah Sweet]

I tend to think it's harmful to the subject and object. It can create some really perverse incentives for both sides of the relationship.

That sounds like a claim that people shouldn't be allowed to decide what they like and what they don't. Why exactly is it a problem to be happy with something up to a point, and not like things after that point? Are you obligated to ride or die with everything a franchise does?

 

[Old Fezziwig]

That sounds like a claim that people shouldn't be allowed to decide what they like and what they don't. Why exactly is it a problem to be happy with something up to a point, and not like things after that point? Are you obligated to ride or die with everything a franchise does?

That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm only saying that there's a point where liking something, even liking it a lot, shifts into something that's harmful to both the individual and the object of that attachment.

Edit: To be clear, (1) people can like what they like, (2) they're not obligated to like everything about what they like, and (3) they're not obligated to ride or die with anything. I tend to think that we get into trouble when people do like everything about what they like and when they start to be ride or die for things.

 

[Zardnaar]

Can't. If I let it pass once it becomes precedent and I'm stuck with it.

If it's a recurring thing maybe. Otherwise pit your foot down.

 

[Lanefan]

The town is what the GM makes it. The town doesn't exist, it's an imaginary thing that (in this example) begins as the GM's creation and then is shared with the players. If you want the players to engage with things within the town, then you need to provide things within the town.

If the GM has not given any thought as to what the players' characters will do in the town, then I don't think he's done his job.

Disagree. I can't predict what they'll do in any given town or (other than the town they start in) whether they'll even ever go there. I also can't predict what characters or even what players will be involved if-when they get there, which for all I know might be two sessions from now or ten real-world years from now.

I've put the town on the map and given a bit of thought to what that town generally represents (e.g. agricultural supply centre, or rough-and-tumble port town, or black-market slave trade centre, etc.) and until-unless anyone goes there for any reason other than to just pass through, that's all I need to do.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I've put the town on the map and given a bit of thought to what that town generally represents (e.g. agricultural supply centre, or rough-and-tumble port town, or black-market slave trade centre, etc.) and until-unless anyone goes there for any reason other than to just pass through, that's all I need to do.

This makes sense to me -- I'm a big fan of just-in-time prep. When you hit that until/unless moment, what sort of prep might you do?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Part of it is that. But part of it is also because I think you are using a model of analysis that doesn't really work well (at least for the way I think about games). Like I said, if you have a model that works for you. That is totally fine and good. What bothers me is the way you guys talk about that model when it doesn't work for others (you have this approach where it sounds like you are saying we are too ignorant, too stupid, or too unwilling, to explore the truth).

I'm describing my thoughts on the matter. Not too far upthread, you called them BS. But somehow, I'm supposed to soften my language.

Disagree. I can't predict what they'll do in any given town or (other than the town they start in) whether they'll even ever go there. I also can't predict what characters or even what players will be involved if-when they get there, which for all I know might be two sessions from now or ten real-world years from now.

I've put the town on the map and given a bit of thought to what that town generally represents (e.g. agricultural supply centre, or rough-and-tumble port town, or black-market slave trade centre, etc.) and until-unless anyone goes there for any reason other than to just pass through, that's all I need to do.

It's not about predicting what they'll do... it's about deciding what's relevant about the town. Even if it's nothing more than a place to rest and resupply for the nearby adventure site, you're making decisions about play. Whether these decisions are made months ahead of play or during play, you're still making decisions about play.

I tend to think of towns or cities as places of opportunity. I certainly don't flesh them out to the extent that many might, but I have some thoughts about them, and what's likely going on in town or nearby, what factions may be relevant, and so on.

So no, I don't think "the town is what the town is". The town is what the GM makes it.

 

[robertsconley]

Well, we're in a thread about challenging the conservatism of D&D fans. Despite my love of D&D, I do think that much of the fanbase is too conservative about the game. I think this of many fandoms. People tend to become fans of something and then they don't want it to change. It's an understandable viewpoint... but one that I think is limiting and ultimately harmful to the subject.

I tend to think it's harmful to the subject and object. It can create some really perverse incentives for both sides of the relationship.

What you are both engaging in is not neutral analysis but rhetorical sleight of hand. When you frame sandbox campaigns, particularly those rooted in traditional procedures, as “vehicles for GM prep,” and then position that as ideologically suspect, you are not offering critique; you are advancing a position through mischaracterization.

Your broader commentary regarding Dungeons & Dragons fans being “too conservative” makes the subtext of your argument quite plain. The implication is that adherence to traditional forms of campaign structure is a symptom of stagnation or fear, a claim that presumes psychological deficiency rather than acknowledging a legitimate difference in design preference.

This is not a new tactic. It echoes the now-infamous remarks made by Ron Edwards, who suggested that players committed to traditional RPGs suffered literal “brain damage,” and required “prosthetic” games to compensate for their dysfunction. That line of argumentation was not a critique; it was a rhetorical power play. It attempted to win the debate by disqualifying the opposition as damaged or abnormal rather than engaging them on procedural or creative merit.

You repeat this approach here. Rather than accurately representing how a sandbox campaign functions, you substitute your own framing. You recast this structure as backward, compromised, or somehow pathological, in order to make your preferred method appear more enlightened by comparison.

This is not a good-faith discussion of mechanics or play culture. It is a redefinition campaign, designed to capture the rhetorical high ground through insinuation rather than argument. If your preferred playstyle has merit, and I assume you believe it does, it should not require this kind of positioning to stand.

In short: if you wish to critique sandbox procedures, do so directly. But do not pretend that reframing them through ideological innuendo is anything other than what it is, an attempt to win the argument by discrediting the alternative rather than understanding it.

 

[SableWyvern]

So no, I don't think "the town is what the town is". The town is what the GM makes it.

It's like if you give someone a car, they might be able to do what they want with it but, at the end of the day, it's still a car.

Except ... they might decide to pull it apart and use it to build all sorts of things that have nothing to do with what a car is for. At which point, the car is no longer what the automotive company made it to be or even what anyone who worked at designing and building it imagined it could be.

When the town enters play, it's what the GM made. But what it becomes is, to very significant extent, up to the players.

 

[AlViking]

This isn't about just D&D, even if D&D has been the poster child for it historically; there's nothing about what I'm championing that is incompatible with D&D per se. I'm a largely trad player and uninterested in the other games you mentioned (13th Age has a few narrative flourishes but most of them aren't baked into mechanics, and my next game, Eclipse Phase, is generally trad in overall structure) other than in the abstract, but go ahead and play the us-versus-them game if you want to. You don't have to be a narrative game fan to think a tendency to over-privilege GM primacy is a bad idea. The fact it may work for some people doesn't change that.

But I should have never let myself get sucked into a discussion of misbehavior when inflexibility and acceptance of a particular paradigm is the point, and I'm not going to do so again.

You aren't trashing D&D, you're just trashing one of its core concepts. You don't like the role of the DM. We know. We get it. I do. It's one of the things that makes the game work for me in a way that narrative games simply don't. I get tired of the completely unnecessary condescending attitude.

We can talk about what we personally like or dislike without saying that DMs are over privileged prima donnas. It's insulting to those of us that enjoy DMing or even just prefer that structure.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

What you are both engaging in is not neutral analysis but rhetorical sleight of hand. When you frame sandbox campaigns, particularly those rooted in traditional procedures, as “vehicles for GM prep,” and then position that as ideologically suspect, you are not offering critique; you are advancing a position through mischaracterization.

Your broader commentary regarding Dungeons & Dragons fans being “too conservative” makes the subtext of your argument quite plain. The implication is that adherence to traditional forms of campaign structure is a symptom of stagnation or fear, a claim that presumes psychological deficiency rather than acknowledging a legitimate difference in design preference.

This is not a new tactic. It echoes the now-infamous remarks made by Ron Edwards, who suggested that players committed to traditional RPGs suffered literal “brain damage,” and required “prosthetic” games to compensate for their dysfunction. That line of argumentation was not a critique; it was a rhetorical power play. It attempted to win the debate by disqualifying the opposition as damaged or abnormal rather than engaging them on procedural or creative merit.

You repeat this approach here. Rather than accurately representing how a sandbox campaign functions, you substitute your own framing. You recast this structure as backward, compromised, or somehow pathological, in order to make your preferred method appear more enlightened by comparison.

This is not a good-faith discussion of mechanics or play culture. It is a redefinition campaign, designed to capture the rhetorical high ground through insinuation rather than argument. If your preferred playstyle has merit, and I assume you believe it does, it should not require this kind of positioning to stand.

In short: if you wish to critique sandbox procedures, do so directly. But do not pretend that reframing them through ideological innuendo is anything other than what it is, an attempt to win the argument by discrediting the alternative rather than understanding it.

Criminy, that's a lot of words to put in my mouth. I'm not criticizing sandbox procedures nor do I think they're backwards. This isn't ideological innuendo -- I genuinely think that fandom is a net negative for society that has no real benefit long term for individuals as individuals or as consumers or for creatives as creatives, including the way that fandom sometimes encourages stagnation (for instance, the push-and-pull regarding whether Wynton Marsalis's defintion of jazz is too narrow or limited in spite of his efforts to bring jazz to wider audiences). I think we'd all generally do better with a more expansive view of gaming and what might be possible both in terms of process and games instead of being overly deferential to past figures in the industry, and I definitely have my preferred games (like all of us?), but I'm not engaged in a "redefinition campaign" or interested in winning an argument.

Edit: forgot two words ("interested in").