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

[Faolyn]

What you're describing here strikes me as radically dysfunction. Like, you turned up to play chess, I turned up to play bridge, and for some reason we're incapable of sorting out the confusion via a simple conversation.

How so? Not every GM out there is going to tell the players the name of the adventure they're running, assuming the adventure even has a name in the first place. Nor are GMs going to tell the players the plot of the adventure. Why would they? That would be a spoiler. When I next run my Level Up game, I'm not going to tell my players "you'll need to stop the noble faction that is creating bioweapons that they are first testing on the innocent populace." The players will simply have to learn about the bioweapon and decide if they want to stop them in the first place. I mean, I'm pretty sure they'll want to, since I know what the players and their characters are like, but that's ultimately up to them.

But yes, that's a very dysfunctional GM right there. They railroaded their player in a particularly noxious way because they went "your options are this one thing or no game." If the player wanted to go to the Monster-Filled Cave, it would still be railroading; the rails would simply be invisible.

I do believe there was a lot of discussion about that very topic on this thread, with the consensus, or at least the loudest posts, being that invisible railroads were as bad, or at least almost as bad, as visible ones.

Which is relevant to the play of Burning Wheel. Aedrhos obviously thinks that he is capable of murder. But is he really? Or is he just putting it on?

That would be a fascinating character arc! ...for the player to choose to go through.

 

[Imaro]

Wonder all you like, these were my friends in high school and thereafter. We liked the same movies, the same books had similar hobbies. I wasn't picking randos.
Fact is the game did not incentivise and therefore a particular style of play emerged because of that.

So I'm describing what frustrated me about the game which educated generations of players, but more importantly my friends, to play 1 way only and your response is suck-it-up buttercup because it is a collaborative game...

Ok. I can speak about my player friends, most of them knew no other way to play. The one that did, had mad skills and ran his own games and migrated to Vampire and of recent to other systems fairly quickly.

I only met others players who were concerned about the TIBF 1/2 way through my RPG career. The one player I carried from my earlier years has remained a meta-gamer (and thats not my assessment of him, that's the tables'). But in all fairness he's starting to show some promise of late.

This is not an alignment discussion or at least I'm not going to enter into one. What I do know is that you've been here long enough and participated in enough of them (alignment threads) to know what the other side's concerns are about alignment (and which editions were most problematic with it) EVEN if you don't agree with them.


It's what they prioritize in play.
D&D doesn't even value (via it's system) the testing the TIBFs of a character, nevermind prioritize.


You're concerned I'm forcing my preferences on my players? Do you perhaps think they don't know what my preferences are? Out of curiosity do you feel the same way if a GM says no monks or dragonborn in their game?


That's 100% true, but just like a child, the early years do play a major role in shaping a roleplayer.

Yeah I'm going to step away from this convo... apparently my questions have in some way offended you (Or you've just decided to take a hostile tone) so since I was asking mostly out of curiosity, I'm good on going further with this line of discussion. Have a nice day.

Edit: Also you might consider the fact that the experience you had with your friends isn't a universal one with the game for all who play it and ponder why that is.

 

[robertsconley]

Correct. Authored works do not have any continuity separate from the decision-making of their authors.

You're affirming the idea that a fictional world has no causal continuity apart from the decisions of its author. That lines up with the view that all fiction is shaped entirely by authorial intent, where meaning and consequence only exist because someone decides they should. In contrast, my position treats fictional continuity as if it were real, within the bounds of the system and procedures that define it. This includes causal chains that persist even when the author or referee isn’t actively focusing on them.

These are irreconcilable viewpoints. The disagreement isn’t just about technique, it’s about what fiction is and how it functions during play. From those different starting points, our reasoning naturally diverges. Your arguments make sense given your stance. Mine follow from the assumption that the world, once established, is consistent and causally autonomous.

For those reading along, this is similar to the historical divide between the Romantics and the Realists in literature. Romantics shaped their stories around emotional truth and artistic vision. Realists grounded theirs in consistent, observable detail, even when the results were less dramatic. Both produced compelling works, but they started from different assumptions about what fiction is supposed to do. The two approaches can’t easily be reconciled because they answer different creative questions.

Before replying, I ask that you consider why you’re continuing to debate this point. What are you hoping to achieve, given the assumptions you’ve clearly stated? If your goal is to critique my techniques, methods, and how they flow from my stance, that’s a valid and worthwhile discussion. But continuing to argue from the premise that your stance is the only correct approach, and that mine is inherently flawed, doesn’t lead to a productive exchange. At that point, it stops being creative discussion and turns into debate for its own sake.

Regarding your other two points, I don’t see value in continuing to debate them. Your responses are consistent with your stance and assumptions, and from within that framework, they make sense. That’s not meant to be dismissive, it’s just a recognition that further back-and-forth won’t be productive when the underlying premises are so different.

 

[AnotherGuy]

But I want to be the one deciding or figuring out how they grow and how far they'll go.

In my games YOU (as player) always decide if the character you started out with their core beliefs and values remains or changes based on the tests you face within the fiction. I (as DM) don't force change on you, never. I test the flaws and convictions you chose and attempt as best I can to present a situation where YOU as player can evaluate them.

You say your character is honest without question, let's test that. What would make you pause, waiver or even break that personal code?

You say you want to honour your fallen friend who was a worshipper of Ka (Mystara) by accepting Bahamut's teachings? Which teachings, all of them or specific ones? And at what price?

The player is the one that always decides not the GM.

I don't see rules that enforce character growth or change making the game any more meaningful for if they don't care about character growth in the first place.

We're currently testing that out at my table. We have a newish player who likes hack-n-slash. I have asked him to provide TIBFs for his character so that I can have a better idea what situations to frame which would test his core beliefs and traits. Until he provides me with that my hands are tied and those types of character challenges don't materialise.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Again, I can see how in BW this would be the case. I am not saying we can't have a discussion that accommodates different ways agency is handled. That is essentially what I am arguing we do. But you are so focused on gameplay, that you are using a definition of agency that completely ignored the players control of their character. That is the part where it gets odd I think. Like there is nothing wrong with mechanics that do that, and I can accept that in some cases, it may ultimately be enhancing to agency. But I think this whole maximal agency argument you are making is operating from a flawed definition (and leaves many high agency styles of play by the wayside)

I’m focused on game play because that’s where player agency is found.

Doubling down on what I've confirmed would not be true. Coolio. The only thing I would learn was whether or not I would roll high enough to succeed.

Not doubling down. I’m asking because it makes no sense to me.

Do you mean you’d just reject what the dice were telling you? Something else?

I’m not following.

 

[Lanefan]

I have posted in this thread, approximately a million times, the following (from pp 11 and 72 of Hub and Spokes):

The GM presents the players with problems based on the players’ priorities. The players use their characters’ abilities to overcome these obstacles. To do this, dice are rolled and the results are interpreted using the rules presented in this book. . . . There is no social agreement for the resolution of conflict in this game. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome.​

Burning Wheel is not a collaborative storytelling game.

How exactly does that say anything to the question of in-character ahead-of-time preparation for a situation, in order to mitigate or bypass an easily-foreseeable obstacle or problem that the GM might present?

Or does the gear listed on the character sheet mean nothing in this game?

Or is thinking ahead and pre-planning not allowed?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Some folks really like to completely dismiss GM attempts to adjudicate based on plausibility and verisimilitude as simple fiat. And somehow don't see that as reductive and insulting.

This, by the way, is why even though I've argued with a number of you in the D&D corner of this thread about some things, is one of the reasons I'm not really with the other main group either. I don't consider "adjucating on versimilitude" a get out of jail free card on some things (because a lot of people's understanding of how some things work either varies or is just wrong to those in the know) but I also don't think its fiat automatically or doomed from the start and the assertation it is, as you say, at least reductive.

 

[robertsconley]

I’m focused on game play because that’s where player agency is found.

Yes, based on your assumptions, that follows. But you're in a conversation with people who don’t share those assumptions. So the real question is: do you want to keep pressing for agreement, or do you want to advance the discussion by exploring why people like @Bedrockgames, myself, and others approach things differently and still run fun, successful campaigns? Just as you do with your own approach.

For example, this thread helped me see how what Luke Crane writes about intent and task can be useful, when I’m running theater of the mind and the situation isn’t mapped out visually. That kind of exchange is where the discussion becomes valuable.

 

[Lanefan]

You forgot to count the time you and your players are staring at each other waiting for something to happen! No agency is happening during that time!

BS. The players have the agency to, among loads of other things, do nothing.

That their doing nothing leads to a mighty dull game doesn't deny their ownership of that agency.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There was no "for me" in their statement. People on this forum (and maybe the internet in general) are really goddarn fond of absolute statements on subjective topics. I try my best to avoid them and talk instead from my personal POV or how I understand things because that's how I was taught to have constructive conversations.

Not just that. They're fond of making absolute statements both before and after telling others off for making such statements.

I know for a fact @Faolyn has criticized previous posts for (allegedly) treating personal preference as objective fact, for failing to explicitly specify that a personal opinion is personal and not a universal fact.

But this just loops back around to "rules for thee, not for me" and is part of why I have mostly checked out of the thread.