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

[Faolyn]

Mysterious double post.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Everything after "headfirst", however, is IMO awful. We're not running a novel or TV show or movie, and ideally we're not thinking like storytellers but instead thinking as our characters as inhabitants of the setting they're in.

Sure, but don't you think there is some leeway here in that many players and GMs borrow and steal from cinema and literature. We emulate cool scenes, smart dialogue, action sequences, interesting characters.

Recently I had a villain inspired by Heath Ledger's joker. The table had a lot of fun. Sadly those dastardly PCs got to him too early before I could get a few more zinger lines which were running through my mind.

Ah well...I did tell them afterward ofcourse.

 

[AnotherGuy]

You know of your group. Which you have made quite clear is full of ruthless exploiters.

Most groups aren't like your group, in numerous ways.

I tend to think most players, match the energy of the group or table they're at.

If the GM is half-assed fair, runs a decent game consistently and the table is inviting, competitive or not, I could see myself enjoy it. In Lanefan's games the strong theme is survivability with multiple perishable characters but the idea is still to have fun at the table.

There must be some magic happening to have a long-standing group like that. If they were only looking out for themselves the idea of a party wouldn't be able to function. And that would have come out in the wash years ago.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I do not remember any explanation. I could have easily missed in the numerous posts.

Given I've supplied it specifically to you at least twice now, I'm going to go with "you don't understand it, or disagree with it strongly enough you're projecting that I've not explained it and my repeating it will not change that" at this point.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Honestly, it has been unclear. I think what often happens in these discussions is people fail to make the distinction between what is happening in the fiction and what’s happening in the game. You see it all the time… people use player and character almost interchangeably, and so on.

Very often in discussions like this, that distinction is important.



Another way of looking at it is that it’s kept alive by posters who clearly have expectations about how the players will proceed, but who won’t admit that they’re directing the game.




That’s an interesting way of looking at it.



I struggle to imagine anyone ever having described themselves as having “encountered a town”.

You have never been to St. Louis…

You will be rolling for initiative

But you hesitate to say city

 

[pemerton]

they aren't the same thing, no, but i don't think the spirit of them is so different either, the only thing i would need to change in the former would be altering 'combat' to 'direct engagement' and they become pretty darn similar, and i think the former is only phrased that way by flaw of assuming that all encounters would be combats.

'did not directly engage' and 'expected but did not happen' are similar enough that both can accurately be derived from the essence of the term 'bypassing an encounter'

"Bypass" used to mean did something other than fight seems to me idiosyncratic but clear enough once the idiosyncrasy is explained.

"Expected by the GM but did not happen" strikes me as an odd way of describing ostensibly player-driven RPGing.

 

[pemerton]

I've never shied away that the setting is the GMPC. I'm the one who selected which APs/modules as well as homebrew content exists.

The PCs drive play in so far as directing me what to prep from the above GM content. Intermixed in all of that are their character goals which I prep for only when they seek an opportunity from the party goal.

As a GM I may say after a session to the players while recounting the game, that they were smart/fortunate as they bypassed x encounters by doing x. We may discuss what impact bypassing those encounters had on their resources, the direction the storyline went etc.

The picture I have, following these posts, is that those bypassed encounters were ones that you had prepped, and were ready to "spring" on the players if the fictional context was appropriate, but the players did things which meant that the fictional context wasn't appropriate and hence the prepped encounters were never "activated".

 

[CreamCloud0]

"Bypass" used to mean did something other than fight seems to me idiosyncratic but clear enough once the idiosyncrasy is explained.

"Expected by the GM but did not happen" strikes me as an odd way of describing ostensibly player-driven RPGing.

it seems the opposite to me, if the game is being driven by the gm then how would events ever not turn out how they are expecting?

the players drive things, however it is the GM's very purpose to construct the world and try predict and plan for the things the players are going to do and encounter and prepare them, but sometimes the players zig when the GM expected them to zag and they don't run into the prepared content.

 

[pemerton]

In casual talk, with my table, bypassing refers to combat or dangerous exploration encounters (you could throw traps in here) while missed is used to refer to social and exploration that pose no danger.

i.e. you guys missed chatting to x at the Social Encounter Tavern or missed the opportunity to enquire about y at the Investigative Library.

EDIT: So the word bypassed is used to avoid danger, while missed describes missed opportunities.

Your "danger" seems pretty similar to @CellarHeroes's "threat" from a bit of a way upthread.

Gygax's AD&D is pretty clear that, when it talks about encountering a monster, that can be something threatening or something friendly - though, because it is defaulting to dungeon exploration, there is always the possibility of danger. And Gygax's AD&D doesn't frame a purchase of a large sack from village weaver as an encounter.

In 4e D&D the concept of "encounter" is linked to stakes - I'd have to go back to the rulebook to check its exact terminology, but it contrasts scenes that are to be resolved via skill challenge or combat rules with low-stakes situations that can be free-narrated through, like dealing with the gate guards when entering town. Unlike AD&D, where everything in the dungeon can be assumed to have something at stake, the 4e approach requires a bit more of a "meta-channel" between GM and players, so that the GM can let the players know that there is nothing at stake, and/or the players can let the GM know that there is nothing of interest to them in what the GM is telling them about.

On a slightly different point, it seems like it is the GM who is deciding that the tavern defaults to a social encounter, or the library to investigation? Again, that is something that is reinforcing my impression that this "bypass encounter" way of speaking is describing GM-driven play.

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton looking at 1e, it's crystal clear that Gygax didn't mean encounter to be solely "combat."

Who are you arguing with? I already posted this multiple times upthread.

But talking to people won't earn you XP in the AD&D rules, unless you get treasure from them as a result of that talking.