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

[AlViking]

So do most OSR games these days. Even D&D 2024 took a stab at it. To not have some degree of best practices, or dislike their presence, is conservative in the utmost.

There's a difference between offering multiple options and advice on how to run games and enforcing preference with rules to me.

 

[JConstantine]

But remember, Mr.(?) Constantine, it's only the narrativists who get prickly, who act like everyone should live by their standards, who see insult where insult isn't present, etc., etc., etc.

I have observations on this, but I'm not sure they'd be received well enough for a constructive discussion.

 

[AlViking]

They're certainly there to minimize the impact of inconsistent rulings or bad judgment calls. I certainly don't think that's malice, and "incompetence" seems a stretch since I've seen it from otherwise excellent GMs.

Basically, seat belts aren't just there for bad drivers.

Feel free to not respond of course but I still don't know what you mean. If someone is not following RAW there's nothing stopping them from not following it in any game, even if D&D is more open about it. What rules can stop bad judgement calls?

 

[Pedantic]

See my comment about constantly being lumped in with the more narrative group just because I share a couple positions with them. The last four games I've run have been 13th Age, BASH Ultimate Edition, Fragged Empire and Mythras; the next one will be Eclipse Phase 2e. If you ignored the combat elements of the game (which are a big part of it) you could perhaps call the remainder of 13th Age "narrative focused" but even that I think would be a stretch in some ways, and I can't see how it describes any of the other four.

The desire of people to draw lines in the sand and firmly put people on one or the other side is tiresome.

You know, it's funny because I think I usually get the opposite branding, despite being about as allergic to "rulings" conceptually as you can be. I was reading a blog a while back that made a compelling argument that my particular class of player is pretty much gone in the TTRPG space, as board games have exploded and gotten to be bigger experiences. I think I buy there's not a lot of space left over once you're rounding up from Gloomhaven, and I'm in a narrow, narrow slice.

 

[robertsconley]

You are not going to get away with disclaiming that somehow the "internal logic of the universe" is responsible for the result when you hand them a bag of poo... You made the table. It is your logic. You own it.

What you're forgetting in your equation is that the players know there’s a 50% chance they’re getting a bag of poo if they attempt something on Valentine's Day. You're describing an event table, and the magic hat in my example works exactly the same way. Both involve a pre-defined set of outcomes and a die roll to determine which one occurs.

But where we’re talking past each other is in how that table, or hat, is introduced. Your table is presented as a direct action by the referee toward the player (i.e., "here’s your Valentine’s gift"). Mine is part of the setting, something the players discover and choose to engage with. So rather than just being handed a result, the players trigger it through their own decisions. That’s a meaningful distinction.

Suppose the magic hat gives a random item based on a 1d4 table with a 50% chance of producing a bag of poo. Now imagine three scenarios:

The player hasn’t investigated what the magic hat does, so they’re unaware of the risk.

The player has been misinformed by another character and chooses to believe them.

The player has learned the hat’s function and chooses to use it anyway.

In all three cases, the consequence flows from the player’s choices. That’s not "whim", that’s interaction with a consistent setting. “Whim” would be me deciding on the spot that it would be funny if the hat had a 50% poo chance, without prior prep or justification. Or, in scenario #2, deciding an NPC lies without any precedent or reason for them to do so.

But if I prepped that hat, placed it in the setting, and the players acquired it through play, then what happens after that is on them. If they’re unhappy because they didn’t investigate or misjudged someone’s advice, that’s a reflection of choices made in play, not arbitrary GM fiat.

Also, keep in mind how I run my Living World sandbox: the world isn’t out to get the players. It doesn’t care about the players. While there are weird magic items, including things like the poo hat, they’re rare, and usually the result of misfired enchantments or eccentric creators. They’re not lurking in every treasure chest. Their existence is part of the world’s internal logic, not a gag at the players’ expense.

You'd have a stronger position if the published game mechanic handed you the answer, and as a GM you are merely the mechanical processor, making no decisions of your own.

My reply to that is simple:

The problem with that assertion is that the GM’s "whim" is present, regardless. I’m pointing out that whether that whim is exerted by choosing to follow the whims of a game designer, at the time of making up a table of outcomes, or in the moment, is not relevant. It is still "whim".

So it isn’t a stronger argument, neither for your premise nor for mine. Plausibility isn’t a binary yes/no switch. My whole process is intricately interwoven with human judgment. If someone doesn’t trust human judgment, then my Living World sandbox won’t work for them. Because yes, the referee’s decisions matter, meaning yes, they’re responsible for the consequences of their game.

If someone runs my sandbox tools and the result feels like a world full of metaphorical bags of poo, that’s on the referee’s. (And to be clear, I’m treating the bag of poo as shorthand for “not fun.” That’s different from a challenging or dangerous world the players knowingly enter.)

But the Living World sandbox doesn’t ask the referee to figure it out magically. I provide concrete processes and methods, during prep and during play, to help ensure that the campaign feels fair, interesting, and engaging. The idea isn’t to eliminate judgment, but to support it, so that players feel challenged in the ways they want to be challenged.

But in the end, with my living world sandbox, it is up to the referee to use it well.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Would it surprise you, then, to know that I run a game heavily driven by the rule of cool....where my players have explicitly praised the consistency and cohesiveness of the world that game occurs in?

I have no issue with you using the rule of cool. Keep in mind the post that person was responding to was in part a defense of rule of cool (I made two observations in the post they were responding to: 1) that a lot of sandbox people in discussions I have been in have a baked in wariness of rule of cool and of using fun as metric for GM decisions in the moment. I also said this sometimes got taken too far (i.e. I sometimes found sandbox that entirely eschewed both in that way, not entirely to my taste, because I do need things like genre elements to be present).

Anything taken to extremes causes problems.

Which was my initial point. And then when I was responding here I was essentially agreeing that the poster's concerns were grounded in something genuine: rule of cool in excess can cause problems. I think we hit peak rule of cool some years back and there was kind of a corrective swing in the other direction. But as with anything, the pendulum can go too far in either direction and everyone has their own table sensibilities. I was just rewatching Goodfellas last night. I could see someone wanting to run a game that just hit beats like it did, where rule of cool was heavily in play so the game felt like a Scorsese movie. I see nothing wrong with that, if that is what you are looking for. What I was talking about was more about how some game recipes don't call for it, or require it in lesser dosages. Just because I wouldn't put gravy in my pesto, it doesn't mean I don't like gravy

At which point, where's the problem? We recognize that a heuristic (rule of cool) has its limits, but can be highly effective applied quite broadly, with a couple reasonable limits, assuming people engaging in good faith.

I don't think there is a problem. Note my phrasing was the rule of cool "can" cause problems, not "will" cause problems.

Again this stuff gets lost in the mix because at times I am stepping into to defend an approach more like Rob's. But I am not averse to flashes of cool in a campaign, especially one that leans into genre.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, it would be nice if I could see even a sliver of that sentiment elsewhere. I almost never do.

Many people have said this. I have said this. It seems to me that you're just not willing to accept other people's preferences and opinions without constant demands for clarification that at this points looks like it will never reach a level satisfying to you.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Where are you people finding such stable groups?! Stop hogging them!

Well, I was running 4e for my friends for a few years like that. Same people I gamed with all through most of the '80s, and '90s too. I'm sure we would still be doing it if I hadn't moved away. There's no secret to it except having a stable group of friends.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Care to explain why you don't run sandboxes in 5e? I've always found it easier than using modules or figuring out all the details for a linear campaign. Of course I suppose some people would likely say that I don't run pure sandbox because I always try to get the general outline of where the characters are headed next at the end of a session.

I use Level Up for my sandbox without trouble, and that's definitely a 5e game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So do most OSR games these days. Even D&D 2024 took a stab at it. To not have some degree of best practices, or dislike their presence, is conservative in the utmost.

I have best practices I use, some of which are shared with other GMs and other games, but they're my best practices. I don't tell anyone that my style is objectively best, and thus imply everyone should do what I do.