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

[SableWyvern]

Or the old chestnut about swimming in armor. Your DM rules that you automatically start drowning and sink to the bottom of the lake because of your armor. You've done your homework and you know that it is possible to swim in armor. In the days before easy access to Youtube, how did you resolve this disagreement of plausibility?

I overlooked this part of your earlier post, until @Faolyn quoted it.

We would resolve it through a conversation. As GM, if one of my players was telling me they had reliable research to suggest the penalties were too harsh and the rules were realistic enough for it to matter, I'd probably rule in their favour for now and check their sources later.

As a player, if I was interested enough in the topic to have actually done the research, was wearing armour and knew I was going on the water, I would almost certainly have raised this long ago, rather than waiting until the middle of the game when it suddenly becomes critical. I would not make important decisions based exclusively on my own private research, all the while knowing that it is common for people to think about the topic more strictly and most likely knowing the rules themselves contradict my knowledge.

 

[robertsconley]

Right. The general 'how it goes' of the world is pretty predictable. We can be fairly confident that certain ongoing current events will continue to be ongoing for the near term. So the 'gist' of things is predictable. I'm not sure we can evaluate the plausibility though. I would have probably rated a lot of what is going on in the world today as seeming far-fetched 30 years ago. In retrospect we can often see the genesis and evolution of some trend or event, but looking forward is remarkably hard, and it is remarkably hard to even say what is possible. And that's BEFORE any weird black swan kind of stuff even comes into play. Nor am I even treading near the level of predicting anything about individual people. To say you have any clue as to what will happen in any given individual's life tomorrow is patently silly. I mean, we can assume it will be the same as today, but that's it. Often that's wildly wrong.

For historians or futurists, that may be a major concern when evaluating long-term trends. But for tabletop roleplaying, the only jury we need to satisfy is the players, and the standard of good enough will suffice.

 

[hawkeyefan]

A game where the players' opinions just don't matter is a dysfunctional one, and I am confident that no one in this thread is advocating for dysfunctional games. "This playstyle won't work if the GM doesn't care what their players think," is a given, as far as I'm concerned.

On one hand, I would agree with you. But, like you, I’ve been fortunate enough that about 99% of my gaming is done with actual friends. So for me, it’s much easier to approach instances of dissatisfaction from one side or the other. Though there can also be challenges present with friends that wouldn’t be present with acquaintances or strangers. But for many folks, that may not be possible.

But aside from that, I’ve seen plenty of people here and elsewhere online who really play up the role of the GM, and how they are final arbiter and how if players don’t like it, they can find another game and all that kind of talk.

You're conflating deciding the outcome with deciding what can be plausible. The DM has no ability to decide what can be plausible, only which outcome he decides upon.

Well, we have been talking about GMs making decisions based on what’s plausible… so

You're making the same mistake as @Hussar and conflating highly unlikely, but possible with plausible. Plausible is what is reasonable/probable. It's highly improbable that a merchant is going to show absolutely no signs of leaving, and then vanish overnight. Possible, but not plausible.

No, I’m saying that because the GM is free to author anything he likes, he can very likely create whatever he wants and create the factors that make it plausible.

You can come up with a reason where it's possible, but there is no reason that will make the highly unlikely plausible.

Yeah, I disagree.

That's not what I was talking about, though. I was talking about taking the Realms and any DM being able to extend the setting logic(as implausible as some of it may be) and use that setting logic to run games that are in line with that setting logic.

I was just joking about the Realms. They’re absurd so mentioning them in conjunction with plausibility just seems silly.

 

[Maxperson]

True, but that those longshot occurrences are possible means we-as-DMs still can't rule them out as a "what happens next" answer every now and then.

If longshots start happening all the time, though, something's come adrift.....unless, of course, someone's just wheeled the Infinite Improbability Drive into the room, at which point you're all hosed.

That's true, but I don't decide those things. If I have to make a chart for possibilities, I'll sometimes include a longshot in the 01 or 00 spot. If I'm deciding something based on an action declaration, it will be plausible.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, we have been talking about GMs making decisions based on what’s plausible… so

So.... The DM still isn't deciding what IS plausible. He's deciding outcomes based on plausible things that exist outside of him. The DM can't(none of us can) create plausibility or implausibility where those things don't already exist.

No, I’m saying that because the GM is free to author anything he likes, he can very likely create whatever he wants and create the factors that make it plausible.

Yeah, I disagree.

You can disagree all you want, but the DM coming up with reasons for why a very unlikely thing happened, doesn't make that thing likely. He can't make it plausible. He can only make it possible, explaining why the longshot happened.

I was just joking about the Realms. They’re absurd so mentioning them in conjunction with plausibility just seems silly.

I know you were joking(halfway at least) about them being implausible. Parts of them are. The context in which I used it, though, doesn't need the origin of the parts to be plausible. The context I used only takes what is, and expands upon it in a consistent and setting logical manner.

 

[Hussar]

Edit to add: But no one is saying that the resolution is divorced from the GM. The GM is the referee. They are making decisions. The buck stops with them and they are responsible for the decisions they make and the processes by which they choose to make them. If I'm wrong, and anyone is claiming the GM isn't responsible for their decisions, they are not at all aligned with my thinking on the subject -- but I'm confident no one is actually claiming this.

But, that's exactly what the whole "internal logic" line of argument is claiming. That the decisions are not coming from the DM, but, rather from the "internal logic" of the DM. The fact that every single element of the setting outside of the characters comes from the DM apparently doesn't matter - the setting itself somehow has an internal logic and consistency that the DM examines and then uses to determine what is plausible before making things happen in the setting.

But, for some reason, this keeps getting ignored.

 

[Hussar]

When it comes to settings, I similarly don't need to figure out the causality for everything, or even most things. Just some things. Some things are enough to make a setting feel like a living, breathing world.

So, most of your decisions are basically whatever you feel is good at the time. Which, somehow, means that you are basing your decisions on the "Logic of the setting". When do you decide which to use? What is the criteria for deciding that you will use the "logic of the setting" and when do you not "need to figure out the causality" of something?

See, this gets to the heart of what I'm pushing back again. The idea that DM's choose stuff that the players will find plausible is just good DMing advice. It's not particualrly special and certainly not unique to any style of gaming. How is this claim of "Internal logic" not just pretention? You, yourself, say that you don't actually follow it most of the time. So, obviously, it can't be terribly important.

 

[SableWyvern]

But, that's exactly what the whole "internal logic" line of argument is claiming. That the decisions are not coming from the DM, but, rather from the "internal logic" of the DM. The fact that every single element of the setting outside of the characters comes from the DM apparently doesn't matter - the setting itself somehow has an internal logic and consistency that the DM examines and then uses to determine what is plausible before making things happen in the setting.

But, for some reason, this keeps getting ignored.

The GM is always ultimately accountable to the players at the table. The players are always ultimately accountable to the GM and each other.

It doesn't matter where the GM gets their information or what their process is. It doesn't matter whether the setting is independent or not. It doesn't matter if the GM uses tables for 100% procedural generation, or follows the exact plot of a novel, or reads chicken entrails, or relies on rules learned in their improv acting classes. Whatever method they use, the GM is still ultimately responsible for the decisions and rulings they make. No one is claiming otherwise and there is no need for you to try and prove this point.

 

[Hussar]

People have gone beyond straw man on this stuff. We've been getting deep into territory that has nothing to do with the level of plausibility one is looking for in a living world sandbox. The bottom line is for me there is a big difference between a GM who is clearly doing something because it is more dramatic and exciting, or because it clearly leads to 'the adventure' and a GM doing things based on what they think would likely arise, and doing so in a way to create a sense of a consistent world (usually also pinning enough factual information down that the place has a sense of feeling more like a model). It is pretty clear to me what Rob is doing, and that it achieves what he sets out to do. The level of scrutiny being applies is a little ridiculous IMO

Not at all. I think that there is virtually zero difference between what @robertsconley does and virtually any other good DM does. Choose the options that the players will find plausible and interesting is not particularly unique or unusual. I would argue that pretty much every single DM in this thread does this.

 

[Hussar]

Butting in.


What are the reasons?

Doesn't matter.

What do the rules say?

1e D&D. Rules are silent.