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

Pedantic said:

I'm coming from a 3e table, primarily. Dice were for fighting and for cases you're forced to use a skill you aren't good at. Nearly everything else came down to creative spell use or invoking a system that output a specific result. There was a lot of leveraging the carry/drag numbers and we were really obsessed with maximizing movement speed, so we could outrun trouble. It was fairly rare that a skill check was actually at stake when the party had some control of the situation.

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Well, I have to point out part of that is D&D spellcasting doesn't involve any skill rolls. Games in the D&D sphere are pretty unique in that fashion (and even then that ability to bypass everything with a spell comes relatively far along; early on if you need to climb something you're unlikely to have enough people with levitate and same for some oter things). I'm also guessing from you're first sentence you excluding Take 10's and Take 20's here, which largely exists because skills are so mediocre in a lot of versions of D&D and the big linear die that's the D20 doesn't help.

Thomas Shey said:

Well, I have to point out part of that is D&D spellcasting doesn't involve any skill rolls. Games in the D&D sphere are pretty unique in that fashion (and even then that ability to bypass everything with a spell comes relatively far along; early on if you need to climb something you're unlikely to have enough people with levitate and same for some oter things). I'm also guessing from you're first sentence you excluding Take 10's and Take 20's here, which largely exists because skills are so mediocre in a lot of versions of D&D and the big linear die that's the D20 doesn't help.

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I'm a big proponent of Take 10/20, definitely the most maligned mechanic from the era. They cleared up most of the issues of the big D20, while still leaving it open to roll when it was actually tense, and provided a clear way to determine the maximum effect that was possible.

But yes, exactly. Rolling was relatively rare, and generally a failure case, unless you were a maxed Hide monster or whatever. I imagine my experience was similar to the "skilled play" model, just with significantly more spelled out and player facing mechanics. Definitely not a "the answer isn't on your character sheet" environment.

Thomas Shey said:

Well, there are a couple of ways to handle that that still matter:

1. You can, of course, simply assume the healing is done as long as there's time. Though there's some randomness in process because there's a limited resource involved (Recoveries, and possibly potions that enhance the recoveries) that's the tact 13th Age takes, and you could set a flat value on that if you didn't want to use die rolls and it'd still work.

2. The die rolls may be pass-or-fail processes where if you don't succeed, you have to use resources you otherwise wouldn't or you simply have to carry on with the injury still present until a much longer time frame is available to heal (a fair number of games that use less abstract damage systems than is typical in the D&D sphere take this tact).

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Well, the discussion was about how poorly designed game mechanics can affect the pacing of a game, so the fact that you can improve pacing of the game by changing or ignoring game mechanics is somewhat irrelevant.

Thomas Shey said:

In neither of these cases would I call it "busywork" though it may have other consequences that may not be desirable to some.

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So, if you change the mechanics so they aren't simply busywork, they may not be busywork?

Umbran said:

And, it gets in the way of them maybe having some tools to make their games more palatable to people whose focus is a bit different than their own, which is a not-uncommon complaint I have heard.

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This kind of framing of the discussion is what I really, truly don't get.

Why would I have any interest in making my game more palatable to people who want a different game than what I want to run? Those people are welcome to go find or run a game that meets their needs; I have no interest in changing my game to match the needs and expectations random posters on internet. And, even if I did change, doing so wouldn't actually help these people who don't like my game, because they'll almost certainly never sit at my table anyway.

If someone who is already at my table is interested in something a bit different, I'm certain we can work it out between ourselves; there is definitely no pressing need for me, right here and now, to establish tools to deal with a purely hypothetical issue there's every chance I'll never face and which almost certainly won't be that hard to overcome if it does show up for real. Nothing is "getting in the way" of resolving any real issue that actually occurs in the real world.

I'm all good with discussions of different preferences and the different ways we go about things; but too often people in this thread are being told they must adapt and learn and be prepared to change the way they game, that they must explain how they will change their processes to ensure they cater for anything a hypothetical player might want from them, that they are exclusionary if they want to choose who they game with or how, that they must cater to anyone who chooses to sit at their table as if no one is allowed to make their own choices about how they spend their leisure time or who they spend it with.

hawkeyefan said:

Yes, because your attitude toward D&D is conservative.



There can still be plenty of uncertainty about play. What I’m talking about are the procedures of play. Make those all transparent… just put it all out there for your players to see.

I mean… give it a try some time.

I found that it helps my players be more comfortable that they understand the situation as their characters would. And for me as a GM, I find it helps me focus on things that are more interesting for the players to be guessing about rather than just what their characters can see and hear.



It’s not holier than thou, Al. And it has everything to do with the way you handle play. It’s literally the topic of the thread. There’s nothing wrong with it (other than as the thread says, it can be exhausting) and if that’s what your players are into, that’s fine.

However, some of us have found there are ways that work better for us.

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I'm glad you found something you enjoy. Because I have as well.

You claim to not be holier than thou immediately after telling me that I would like your way if I just wasn't so conservative and gave it a try. You might as well just tell me that I'm just scared of trying new things and my games would be so much better if I accepted the gospel.

If I were to give an example of my games I would say take a look at Critical Role minus the amazing acting skills. Of course one group is also amazingly more good looking than the other, I'm sure I don't need to tell you which one. I do stupid voices with nowhere near the talent of Matt but we get into character, have a lot of fun with RP and even the occasional shopping trip. What I, and Matt, don't do is tell the players more than what the characters know. It works for us just like it's worked for millions of people. I've even heard CR has a few fans, so we must be doing something right.

It's fine to have different preferences. Just don't tell me how I can improve my game when I didn't ask.

The reason I introduced new tools was because there were parts of the game I wasn't enjoying not because any of my players had issues.

SableWyvern said:

This kind of framing of the discussion is what I really, truly don't get.

Why would I have any interest in making my game more palatable to people who want a different game than what I want to run?

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Why? Maybe because you don't have enough like-minded people around to run the game exactly how you want to do it? Or maybe you really want to play with your BFF, but the fullness of your preference isn't quite their bag?

Or are we all absolutists around here, unwilling to make any compromise or adjustments for anything around our games?

I admit, I'm a service-oriented GM - my fun comes from the players having fun. Players >> playstyle dogma, to me.

Umbran said:

Why? Maybe because you don't have enough like-minded people around to run the game exactly how you want to do it? Or maybe you really want to play with your BFF, but the fullness of your preference isn't quite their bag?

Or are we all absolutists around here, unwilling to make any compromise or adjustments for anything around our games?

I admit, I'm a service-oriented GM - my fun comes from the players having fun. Players >> playstyle dogma, to me.

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Yeah, I absolutely tweak what’s happening at the table based on feedback & what works and what doesn’t. So long as I’m enjoying the play, maximizing how it feels for everybody only enhances the experience.

Umbran said:

Why? Maybe because you don't have enough like-minded people around to run the game exactly how you want to do it? Or maybe you really want to play with your BFF, but the fullness of your preference isn't quite their bag?

Or are we all absolutists around here, unwilling to make any compromise or adjustments for anything around our games?

I admit, I'm a service-oriented GM - my fun comes from the players having fun. Players >> playstyle dogma, to me.

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Again, nothing wrong with sharing preferences and styles and discussing how we do things. Someone might even use this as an opportunity to make changes to they way they run things. That's all fine.

The thing is, it doesn't remain a discussion of preferences with people able to make their own decisions about which parts might be of value to them at their own tables. Instead, it regularly becomes things like (not directly quoting anyone) "You should be using this as an opportunity to develop more tools," "If you don't take this on board, you're hindering your ability to develop the tools you need", or moral assertions such as suggesting someone who doesn't feel the things being discussed are going to help them run their own game is probably unable or unwilling to compromise or adjust, in general.

There are people in this discussion literally stating that if I want to run game type A and there is someone in the world who wants to play game type B, it is not acceptable for me to explain to that person that currently game type A is all I'm interesting in running, I must seek a compromise solution with this hypothetical random person who has different interest, and anything else is unreasonable and unfair and should not be considered an acceptable outcome.


Edit: To be fair, my current feelings about this whole discussion are probably heavily coloured by the position held by a single poster, and it may be I am unfairly projecting that poster's arguments on others who are presenting more nuanced perspectives

zakael19 said:

Yeah, I absolutely tweak what’s happening at the table based on feedback & what works and what doesn’t. So long as I’m enjoying the play, maximizing how it feels for everybody only enhances the experience.

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I am confident no one in thread is unwilling to accept feedback from their group, and I assume all the GMs engaged in the discussion will work with their existing players as much as possible to run a game everyone enjoys.