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

[AlViking]

Yeah, that was true for me c1976 or so. Been there, done that.

Like I said, we want different things out of games. I'm still enjoying "doing that" and narrative games just don't ring my bell.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I was thinking Deathmatch Island and Apocalypse Keys.

The former because the Paragon system gets you scene framing and players narrating their successes and failures, and the latter because the 'Apocalypse by Moonlight' mechanics present and resolve adventures in a neat way that I think takes better advantage of PbtA game structures than Dungeon World.

@DinoInDisguise for vis.

I found Paragon, in the form of Agon, was interesting, but pretty limited. Our games seemed pretty heavily slanted in favor of the PCs, though we did fail one or two islands. It was fun, but felt pretty limited.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Change all you want, but at your own table for you and your people. Don't make other people change. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

No one can make anyone do anything.

I don’t think that telling GMs that the flow of time in their game is something they can control is in any way bad. They can choose to speed it up or slow it down as suits the needs of the table.

I consider it along the lines of the kind of universal advice you see in style guides… like “omit unnecessary words”.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No one can make anyone do anything.

I don’t think that telling GMs that the flow of time in their game is something they can control is in any way bad. They can choose to speed it up or slow it down as suits the needs of the table.

I consider it along the lines of the kind of universal advice you see in style guides… like “omit unnecessary words”.

You're the one who complained about a lack of desire for change.

 

[Herschel]

Note: I DO NOT MEAN POLITICAL CONSERVATISM. This is not a thread about politics.

I mean "conservatism" as in resistance to change. You see it all the time -- people complaining about the new art or aesthetics, literally saying things like "if they used the old art I would be in." It is so mind boggling to me.

D&D is a living game. OF COURSE the new books etc are going to adapt to the new market. If you literally won't play a newer version because tieflings or whatever, then it isn't for you. Don't demand it regress to the era you discovered D&D because that is what makes you feel good; play the version you discovered.

I don't liek every artistic or design choice either, but it isn't up to me to demand D&D coddle my unchanging preferences. If I want to re-experience BECMI (the edition I grew up with) I can just play that. And so can you.

/rant

I get it. I care about things like the environment, the future for my family line, civilization as a whole and even the planet, but social media and the society that has grown out of it often makes me think humanity isn't actually worth saving.

 

[Faolyn]

More commonly IME - particularly at very low levels - they need to turn around and go back to get new characters to replace what they lost; getting new supplies is done at the same time, helped (sometimes greatly!) by any treasure they've thus far managed to scoop from the place.

I did it last week in the game I run for my kids.

Like I said, never in my experience.

But I have once or twice seen parties turn around on hitting an obstacle and realizing they simply don't have the (usually class-related) abilities in the party to get past it, and that they have to go recruit someone with those abilities in order to progress.

Interesting for all if the players try thinking of new and creative ways of getting around the obstacle, whether successful or not.

Interesting for me-as-DM if they have to turn around and go do something else.

Fun? Most of the time, obstacles aren't supposed to be fun.

It encourages the players to take a different path they will hopefully find fun or interesting.

Hmm.

No, I just don't see it. The characters may not be having fun, but the players should be.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That is an explanation of a playstyle preference. It's good if moving action along and making "progress" is a major priority for your play.

Okay. You say this as though those things are, like...controversial.

But the plain reading of their opposite is the action grinding to a halt and making no "progress". (Note that this doesn't mean "progress" in the sense of getting closer to a defined end in PbtA any more than it would mean such in a "traditional GM" sandbox. There is no defined end either way. But there is keeping moving vs not doing that.)

I'm certain you would want more positive terms for such, but I don't know what they would be. How would you describe these (as others have said) conflict-neutral, low- or no-stakes events, in a way that is positive rather than seeming to be negative?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Change simply for the sake of change doesn't buy anything for me. I'm not playing D&D because I'm in love with the rules (although I do like them), I'm playing D&D because it still lets me tell new stories when I DM and enjoy new stories when I play. Personally I would call my approach character first - the character I'm playing or the characters I'm running games for - come before the rules of the game. As long as the game's rules don't get in the way of how I want to run my character or how I want to GM, I'm okay with it. That can include restrictions of course, I don't expect my D&D fighter to suddenly find a phone booth (or would the equivalent in D&D be an outhouse?) and transform into Superman.

Which .. not that this has anything to do with my reason for replying just something I realize ... is probably one of my biggest issues with the way many narrative games are described. That for every action/move there is typically an equal and opposite reaction. You have to make the reactions fit the fiction; it's backwards to me. It's putting the rules over the characters and the fiction of the world.

Anyway, now I'm just rambling.

Right there with you on fiction over rules.

I find this both very surprising and very frustrating, because I know I have said to both of you, multiple times, that the books explicitly day the opposite of what you have said here.

That is, they repeatedly reiterate that it is the fiction that matters most. They repeatedly say things like "Start and end with the fiction" and things like the pair of "you have to do it to do it" (read: you do not and should not ever "do a move", you take actions in the fiction, and those actions must first meet some trigger in order for any move to apply) and "if you do it you do it" (read: when a trigger does happen, the move in question occurs, we take care of its rules which resolve an open question of some kind, and then we go right back to the fiction and stay there until another open question occurs). Or how the rules indicate that the GM should only address the players by their character names in order to keep things in character as much as possible.

Like this is...I'm really really struggling here. This is explicit stuff. It's not subtext. It's not hidden. It's not something that only arises out of careful interpretation. It's literally right there on the surface.

So I'm really, really confused why you would get this impression when the text is so overtly clear that this is NOT how it works or what it does. I know both of you are smart, capable people. I know you don't have issues comprehending what a text directly says. So I'm really baffled how you could get this.

It would be like saying that Gygaxian D&D prioritizes narrative over exploration. That's the level of "wait...what? How did you get THAT out of this???" reaction I'm having here.

 

[AlViking]

You're the one who complained about a lack of desire for change.

Complain? I'm not so sure. More like making a joke at the expense of people that don't change for the sake of change.

 

[AlViking]

I find this both very surprising and very frustrating, because I know I have said to both of you, multiple times, that the books explicitly day the opposite of what you have said here.

That is, they repeatedly reiterate that it is the fiction that matters most. They repeatedly say things like "Start and end with the fiction" and things like the pair of "you have to do it to do it" (read: you do not and should not ever "do a move", you take actions in the fiction, and those actions must first meet some trigger in order for any move to apply) and "if you do it you do it" (read: when a trigger does happen, the move in question occurs, we take care of its rules which resolve an open question of some kind, and then we go right back to the fiction and stay there until another open question occurs). Or how the rules indicate that the GM should only address the players by their character names in order to keep things in character as much as possible.

Like this is...I'm really really struggling here. This is explicit stuff. It's not subtext. It's not hidden. It's not something that only arises out of careful interpretation. It's literally right there on the surface.

So I'm really, really confused why you would get this impression when the text is so overtly clear that this is NOT how it works or what it does. I know both of you are smart, capable people. I know you don't have issues comprehending what a text directly says. So I'm really baffled how you could get this.

It would be like saying that Gygaxian D&D prioritizes narrative over exploration. That's the level of "wait...what? How did you get THAT out of this???" reaction I'm having here.

So you deny that there are games that if a player does X the GM responds with Y?