Search results

In fairness, that extends all the way back into Greek myth. Sometimes "drakones" were depicted as legless, sometimes not. Some could fly, some could not. Most did not breathe fire, but instead breathed poison. And some of them were people! Hercules was persuaded to produce offspring with one...

Extremely well-said. For me? It's because people identify the experience they had when they were new D&D players as "the" D&D experience. Anything which pulls in a different--even if parallel--direction is thus "Not D&D". To pollute D&D with what is "Not D&D" (even though, as you rightly point...

Speaking as a dragonborn fan, there are three advantages dragonborn have over both half-dragons and draconians. They are draconic without being literally made by/of dragons. Half-dragons literally have a dragon parent, with all the stuff that entails. Draconians are created from corrupted...

I was (perhaps incorrectly) drawing a distinction between sources in general and physical artifacts, which may not be actually something real historians do, but as that seems to be something you are reasonably comfortable with, I'll stick with treating "sources" as documents or expressions of...

But you have insisted: absolute power. Absolute power does not discuss. It declares. That's, again, what MAKES it absolute. What odds? By your own insistence, there IS no odds. The GM does what they like. Period. Not even "end of discussion", because there isn't any. Only absolute power and...

And...? I fail to see how this answers the question at all.

I was under the impression that secondary sources were always considered to be suspect and not acceptable as the only basis of theories of history. That's why I said "secondhand" sources. Primary sources are held in much higher regard, and a mixture of primary and secondary is (AIUI) considered...

And "agree to disagree" is useful when we are, for example, talking on a forum. (Though I fail to see how that is at all comparable to an "invisible rulebook" type thing? That's an explicit statement of, or request for, action.) "Agree to disagree" doesn't work when we are playing a game...

But the GM is beholden to no one. Why would words achieve anything? The GM does what she wants. Words are irrelevant.

How can one abuse authority that is absolute? Absolute authority permits you to do anything. That is what makes it absolute!

I completely agree! But when I asked for discussion for HOW one does this, for how one should go about trying to fix a smaller breakdown of the table's function, you know what I was told, repeatedly, by several different people? Some variation of "you just HAVE to trust me[/the GM]." Which, as...

Have we read the same thread? Seriously? You and others have presented opinions far more strident than mine. Often, folks have done so while explicitly recognizing that they haven't even read the text in question!

Well, while this would very much not be my cup of tea, you have at least made it clear and gotten your players' explicit consent to occasionally deceive them, which removes a significant part of the sting. It wouldn't be for me, but that's irrelevant. That is not my base complaint. It does...

One of my greatest frustrations with the "traditional GM" role as described by several people here and elsewhere (meaning both in other threads on this forum, and in other places on the internet, e.g. links people give me about "FKR" stuff) is that this is not only not mentioned, I see things...

They have not said so here. But they have said so. Bloodtide, Max, and some I have ignored as a result of interactions in this thread.

I mean, when several people in this thread explicitly reserve the right to do these things whenever they feel it necessary, what am I to conclude?

Okay. This is a good reply. But it seems to me that it is (perhaps excessively) summarized laconically as: "Stop doing those things." Or, at the very least, "Avoid those things as much as you can, and if you really have to, do it only under direst need."

But then you aren't doing this invisibly, behind-the-scenes. You aren't relying on what is unspoken. You are speaking it aloud. You most likely also don't go out of your way to prevent the people in the group from knowing you've done this, I assume? May even check in with the players on how they...

I have been told (by non-professionals, so take it with a grain of salt) that I might have neurodivergent traits, so it's not entirely surprising that you see a similarity there. I would not call that "cynical" personally; that seems far too harsh. Instead, I would say that it seems cavalier...

How can one "foster a spirit of sincerity and co-operation" when one is secretly modifying the rules whenever one feels like doing so, concealing the actual processes by which player actions produce consequences, and employing techniques like illusionism or fudging?