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

[Thomas Shey]

You aren't trashing D&D, you're just trashing one of its core concepts.

So? Game concepts aren't holy.

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.

I'm not going to say it can't work for some people. That doesn't make me required to consider it a generally good idea, nor to not say so because it upsets some people. If you take it as applying to you, that's on you.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So? Game concepts aren't holy.

You forgot the GM is the Pope

 

[Faolyn]

Easy enough to see how that happened: it's the expected outcome when a combat-centric series of modules is updated for a combat-centric edition.

You'll have to do the conversion yourself, and it's for much lower level than the GDQ series, but maybe look at something like L1 Secret of Bone Hill for something with a bit more variety.

And some who, while railing against any DM direction, also don't know what to do when no such direction is forthcoming; and that's a no-win situation.

Yeah, I don't think any of us at my table are really interested in 1e/2e adventures, to be honest.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

You forgot the GM is the Pope

I could run games in a mitre.

Related, I dated a girl in graduate school that thought I dressed up like a wizard when I ran D&D games. She had seen my apartment. I don't know where she thought I was hiding the robes and hat.

 

[robertsconley]

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").

I appreciate the clarification, and I get your Wynton Marsalis example.

In the 21st century, that kind of fandom pressure just doesn’t matter.

Anyone who wants to build something, sandbox, narrative, shared authority, whatever, can do it at a professional level in the time they have for a hobby and find their audience directly. If you have a vision for what a campaign should look like, there’s no need to ask permission from fans or worry what is popular or not-popular at the moment. Just do the work and put it out there.

Back in the mid-2000s, when The Forge was at its peak, all of this was still in its infancy. Indie creators were competing for limited warehouse space, limited shelf space in stores, and often had to invest significant capital just to bring a product to market. Angry, frustrated, and feeling marginalized, figures like Ron Edwards, Vincent Baker, and others lashed out, not by selling their ideas on their merits, but by leaning into rhetoric designed to inflame: “stick it to the man,” “rage against the system,” and so on.

So when the conversation starts focusing on what “fandom” likes or doesn’t like, or whether one preference is stagnating the hobby, It is missing the point. Those debates don’t stop creative work anymore. They don’t gatekeep access. They don’t define the boundaries of what’s possible. The limiting factor isn’t fandom, it’s whether someone actually builds the thing they want to see.

The OSR had its share of loud voices, but it thrived because people focused on building the things they wanted, then used tools like Lulu, PDFs, and blogs to get them out there. They embraced the tech, ignored the gatekeepers and criticism, and let the work speak for itself.

Nor was this ever limited to the OSR. As new folks entered the hobby, many also took advantage of our time, put out their own creative vision, in the form they want to see it. And this spread throughout the different niches of the hobby, until today when it is the default not the exception.

The expansive hobby you want is already here. I can be seen at places like DriveThruRPG with nearly 170,000 titles. It can be seen in the rapidly expanding catalog of Itch.io. But if your goal is an even more expansive hobby, then let’s talk about procedures. What works. What fails. Because that’s where growth actually comes from.

 

[Campbell]

So, I like Narrativist games, and for a fairly long time they were the only games I run and played. But I have learned to enjoy and play other games for what they offer.

My favorite games are actually the sort of character reinforcing trad games like Dune 2d20, Chronicles of Darkness, Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition, Tales of Xadia. A lot of what my home group runs tends to be along these veins - including custom Cortex Exalted and our custom Final Fantasy 8 inspired Cypher game. Stuff where we build narrative sandboxes out of the characters we create. Really looking forward to getting my Cosmere books because the Stormlight Archive seems right up my alley.

I'm also a very big fan of OSR stuff, especially stuff that takes on the principles and does new stuff with it - especially if it has weird, interesting settings. Stuff like The Nightmares Underneath, Mork Borg, Into the Odd, Dolmenwood.

I'm also a big fan of Kevin Crawford's Sandbox stuff. Especially the stuff that predates Stars Without Number Second Edition (not a fan of the build complexity and standardization that started there). Traveller's cool as well.

I just fundamentally believe in taking an expansive view of roleplaying games when we are specifically talking about all roleplaying games. I think when we talk about things like what is and is not a dimension for system design, we should acknowledge that pretty much anything can be part of it and more specific/cohesive experiences are a fine vector for system design.

I just take a more expansive view of what counts as railroading though not as expansive as @pemerton. My bear minimum is that social expectation can be railroading as much as more overt forms. This stuff is probably more personal to me because my early gaming history was all about escaping from what was a pretty pervasive climate of linear / AP play.

I also think autonomy and impact of decisions are both important elements of agency. If you feel personally attacked by a definition of agency that implies being able to make real changes and have decent information quality should be expected in most play, I hope you do. That's not a knock on sandbox play. That's a knock on play that has no regard for interaction design.

I do tend to defend and bring up Narrativist games a decent amount on these boards, but mostly because people want to keep making points about RPG play more broadly, rather than sticking to D&D. They talk about what's possible and also say some pretty wild things in stray comments. More importantly for someone like me the idea that all roleplaying games are adventure games and should be evaluated on that basis falls pretty flat.

Most of what I'm looking for is to take an expansive view of what roleplaying games are and can be. The conservatism I am not fond of is the one that limits our conversations to ones where certain playstyles are just taken as valid of respect and others have to earn respect. I'm including a lot of my group's more conventional play here also - which is focused on the social pillar and includes a focus on mechanics that reflect who the characters are. As someone who got their start mostly with Vampire as much as with AD&D this stuff has always been thoroughly normal to me.

 

[jayoungr]

So? Game concepts aren't holy.

They are, however, what differentiates one game from another.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I... haven't been.

OK then, I'll ask you: GM won't let you use your background to get answers. What do you consider the middle position here?

Well, resuming from the point where I left off, which is after the point where problematic but not "clearly a jerk who doesn't deserve second chances" behavior occurred...

Spoiler: Discussion

Privately, he tells Hannah, "I'm really not very happy about what happened when Ranakht sought an audience with the priests. I know it's not supposed to just be a walk in the park, but it feels really weird and out of place that a devout member of a fellow priesthood couldn't even attempt to get an off-the-record audience with somebody. Like, this really feels like my choices don't matter very much, and especially that the backstory I worked really hard to write is irrelevant to you."

Hannah says, "I'm sorry I made you feel that way. You're right. I should have handled that situation very differently. It was a bad move on my part to just nix your plan with no explanation expecting you to just take my word that it would all make sense eventually. I'd like to make this right."

Kyle: "Okay. Thank you for the apology. I appreciate that you listened. Do you have a fix in mind?"

Hannah: "Well, I think we've gone a bit too far to wind it back and re-do, would you agree?"

K: "Yeah, as much as I'd like to, it wouldn't make sense anymore."

H: "In that case, I have an idea, but it will come up in play. I still don't think your original approach should work, BUT there is still a benefit you can get from it. Which would you say matters more to Ranakht, his distant relation to the royal family, or his upbringing in the priesthood?"

K: "Definitely the latter. That's really what shocked me the most about this. The priesthood of Sutekh-Garyx being so completely dismissive of a fellow priest, even if Ranakht doesn't wear the vestments, seemed so out of place compared to what we've seen from other priests in this world."

H: "Okay. And yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I can say, there are issues in play here that will come up, probably pretty soon. But, at least for now, how does this sound as a compromise: I can say your presence was noticed by priests who would want to help you, and the fact that you were so harshly turned away worries them. They'll get in touch with you in a more subtle way, sometime in the next session...or maybe the one after that if the current trek takes too long."

K: "Hmm. Okay. Can I add an idea?"

H: "Shoot. No promises, but I'd like to include it if it can work."

K: "How about these priests use the other part of my backstory as their excuse for sending the message? So they send an official message recognizing the visit from 'a royal envoy'--which I know you know Ranakht isn't at all--and then there's a secret message that comes along with the official one."

H: "Oh, yeah that totally works. I like that better than the idea I was originally gonna go with, actually, so sure. And I promise, I'll remember what happened here so it doesn't happen again. If you think it has happened again, give me a signal. Maybe like...tap the side of your head three times? Something subtle so it doesn't disrupt the session, but does let me know I've gone too far with something."

K: "Sure, that's easy enough, but I hope I never need to use it."

H: "Me too! Alright, see you next week."

K: "See you then!"

Here, the DM:

• Admitted fault without blame or anger
• Understood, and specified, why what they did was a breach of trust, and why making up for it is important
• Confirmed with the player that the most obvious fix (retcon) would not work in this case
• Offered a dialogue about making things right, rather than just declaring a fix unilaterally
• Asked questions about what the most important/relevant issues or elements were
• Listened to player input, and accepted a change to their original planned (but not explicitly spelled-out) fix
• Notably did not simply reveal campaign secrets, other than the relatively mild "the priesthood is not actually 100% unanimous"
• Makes a commitment, not just to generically "doing better", but specifically to fixing the specific spelled-out issue
• Provided a non-disruptive, non-judgmental mechanism for addressing future slip-ups, just in case they fall short of their goals

Hence why I spoke of things like "accountability" (expecting a person to accept reasonable criticism without anger, identify their mistakes accurately, and commit to specific actions to prevent/address possible future errors) and "restitution" (offering to fix the problem, listening to the concerned player, laying out reasonable limits and heeding reasonable expectations, and developing a mutually-acceptable solution). Open and forthright communication, accountability, and restitution are the things you need in order to address actions that are a breach of trust without being a total shattering of trust. If trust truly is totally shattered, especially in the context of a game, it probably isn't worth the extensive effort to put it back together--but there are a LOT of things people can do which are not going to totally ruin trust forever, but which are harmful to trust and which if not addressed would fester into something that can ruin trust.

 

[robertsconley]

"a definition of agency that implies being able to make real changes and have decent information quality"

What you wrote before and after that is appreciated. But the quote above illustrates why there’s strong pushback from myself and others in this thread.

The different variations of agency serve different creative goals. They promote different kinds of change, and they rely on different expectations for how information is presented and used in play.

There’s no universal scale to measure “real change” or “decent information quality.” These concepts aren’t absolutes, they’re shaped by the purpose of the campaign and the procedures that support it. There are always trade-offs. Doing one thing a certain way will naturally emphasize some aspects of play over others. They are RELATIVE to the creative goals the group, or designer set for themselves.

That’s why the quote is a problem: it assumes a singular, idealized form of agency, rather than recognizing that different games pursue different goals and structure agency accordingly.

And this ties back to what I said to Old Fezziwig: the hobby is already expansive. We’re not stuck waiting on permission from some central authority. Anyone with a vision can build the campaign structure or system they want and get it into the hands of players who want that experience. Whether it's a living world sandbox, a narrative-first framework, or something in between, the tools are there.

So instead of framing certain approaches as failing some ideal model of design, the better question is: does it do what it set out to do, and for whom?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

They are, however, what differentiates one game from another.

And yet they are also what necessarily must be questioned when either reviewing games that already exist, or choosing to design a game, whether it is the official successor to a previous game or a new game only unofficially or indirectly following after a previous game.

If game concepts could never be challenged, then both of those tasks are impossible and there neither would nor could have been another D&D after OD&D--since even 1e differs significantly from its predecessor, despite having more in common with it than any other edition has with OD&D.