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

[zakael19]

The fatal flaw of consulting players is the overwhelming majority don't RTFM to understand the GM's position.

The only player I ever really had seriously argue about decisions and mechanics was the guy who knew the rules really well. Everybody else might’ve had a question and we walked through it together and got to a common ground, or the outcome simply didn’t match their expectation of plausibility from a “what should be happening here in the fiction” perspective.

 

[Faolyn]

I find, "It is the world's internal logic" to be...
Well...
...pretty directly analogous to a player explaining behavior with, "But that's what my character would do!"

And as with most things, whether “It’s what my character would do” is bad or good depends on how it’s used and what it’s used for. Acting in-character is generally a good thing unless the player is using it as an excuse to be a jerk or worse. Likewise, following the world’s internal logic is a good thing unless the GM is using it as an excuse to be a jerk or worse.

 

[zakael19]

The fatal flaw with consulting players about rulings is that with extremely rare exceptions they'll exclusively support the ruling that is most in their favour right now, without regard for precedent nor any effects on the long-term viability of the game or campaign.

You need to work with better players or make better rulings. The vast majority of mine over the years have been interested in “what makes for the most interesting outcome here.”

 

[pemerton]

PbtA games literally codify certain practices/techniques as rules for the GM to follow. Some of them are GMing fundamentals like "soft moves" and "hard moves" basically being set up (i.e. telegraphing) and follow-through, respectively, or "make a move when XYZ" which is literally just do standard GM stuff, or "disclaim decision-making sometimes".

PbtA games' GM Principles seem to me to be a explicit codification of what has generally been considered GM best practices. They're like the GMing equivalent of painting by numbers

Personally I think this is quite inaccurate as far as Apocalypse World is concerned. (I don't have any general view on "PbtA' as a category, given the diversity of games that locate themselves under that label.)

Just to give a really easy example: a completely standard GM move in a lot of D&D-esque RPGing is "nothing happens". This can follow from all sorts of player action declarations - probably most often looking for things (that either are not there as per the GM's notes, or that the PCs fail to find as per whatever the search/perception resolution is in the game).

Furthermore, my general experience is when ENW posters committed to trad-ish RPG approaches (eg @Micah Sweet, @Lanefan fan) are presented with examples of AW play that follow from the application of the AW principles and techniques, they respond with great hostility. That is consistent with the idea that AW is setting out a quite distinctive and not especially mainstream/conventional approach to GMing a RPG.

 

[zakael19]

Something very funny: people talking about how they’ve played with the same group of players for decades and you should get to know people before playing with them to establish GM relationships and trust also constantly assuming players are somehow terrible and cannot be trusted.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So, I picked up @Bedrockgames ' Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades a few years ago, which led me to his blog, and the podcast he did with his co-author, so I have a greater familiarity with his approach than I do @robertsconley 's (though I recall reading a few articles on Robert's blog when I first started GMing 10 or so years ago), and here's the thing, it's no more a "vehicle for the GM's content" than BitD is. If you consider BitD to be player-driven, then so is Bedrock's sandbox, otherwise Blades isn't player-driven either.

Thanks. I am glad you picked it up. I think RBRB is especially in that direction because the martial world in that is pretty much all about the characters. Yeah, when I read blades in the dark, it was kind of hard for me to get into as a system (which doesn't mean much, me not gelling with a system doesn't mean it is bad or anything like), but I recognized it was doing things that were very much in the ballpark of what I was interested as a GM. So I don't see any conflict with what they are doing and I am doing. I am probably just much looser with my approach to procedures and tools.

 

[zakael19]

Personally I think this is quite inaccurate as far as Apocalypse World is concerned. (I don't have any general view on "PbtA' as a category, given the diversity of games that locate themselves under that label.)

Just to give a really easy example: a completely standard GM move in a lot of D&D-esque RPGing is "nothing happens". This can follow from all sorts of player action declarations - probably most often looking for things (that either are not there as per the GM's notes, or that the PCs fail to find as per whatever the search/perception resolution is in the game).

Furthermore, my general experience is when ENW posters committed to trad-ish RPG approaches (eg @Micah Sweet, @Lanfean) are presented with examples of AW play that follow from the application of the AW principles and techniques, they respond with great hostility. That is consistent with the idea that AW is setting out a quite distinctive and not especially mainstream/conventional approach to GMing a RPG.

Right, the core of most PBTA play is: something with forward momentum is going to happen. The GM establishes the situation, makes a Grabby (hopefully) move, and asks. If nobody reacts, you follow through and evolve the fiction and ask again. It’s a more circular conversation.

 

[AlViking]

I wasn't saying anything about better or worse. I just find US amusing to defend against calls for kitchen-sink player choice but "scoff" at anything that seeks to diminish kitchen-sink GM authority and vice versa.

We humans are funny. That is all. It's an appreciation of our silliness.

Did I mention I had 6 hours of (bad) sleep last night? Sorry if I took it the wrong way.

 

[Lanefan]

You need to work with better players or make better rulings. The vast majority of mine over the years have been interested in “what makes for the most interesting outcome here.”

Thing is, I'm pretty much absolute that a ruling now sets a precedent forever*, meaning that what might make for the most interesting outcome right now might also provide a broken exploit for later once people take a longer look at it; and some players IME will happily push for just this and for just this reason.

Flip side: the precedent you set now because it's the most interesting outcome this time might lead to some very non-interesting outcomes down the road if-when the same thing arises again; but both setting consistency and rules consistency says you're stuck with it.

We also run under more of a referee paradigm, where it's the players' job to push against the rules envelope and the DM's job to enforce it.

* - 'forever' meaning the remainder of that campaign, which might be many years.

 

[Lanefan]

Something very funny: people talking about how they’ve played with the same group of players for decades and you should get to know people before playing with them to establish GM relationships and trust also constantly assuming players are somehow terrible and cannot be trusted.

Not quite.

What it means is that we can play with a bit more player-v-DM antagonism and still be and remain friends, because we know that what happens in the game stays in the game.