D&D General A glimpse at WoTC's current view of Rule 0

[Lanefan]

Huh? Playing a game, and losing, can still be fun.

I agree with you here.

The designers of modern D&D, however, don't seem to agree with either of us; in that they've stripped out most of the loss conditions and make the remaining few rather difficult to achoeve.

Back when I used to play a bit of M:tG, I would almost always lose, as the people I was playing against were strong players in the local scene. That didn't mean I didn't enjoy myself!

Same here. My crowning glory was when I won a local tournament in about 1995. After that, the ship just kept sinking...

 

[Thomas Shey]

Strong opinions are one thing but again, in practicality, people gather to play the game not argue. Those that do, at least to my mind, are not that different from the those flip the game board or rage quit video games when they lose, and I’d rather not play with them at all. I know those people exist but by my definition, it’s predicated on people being reasonable. At a point, that behavior wouldn’t be reasonable.

I guess I just, well, can't agree. Sometimes there's no entirely compatible decision possible, and someone is going to lose out of a decision. You can make an argument about at what point you should stop arguing a point (because there are more than two people involved in the matter at hand in fairness to the rest) but that still doesn't require the person to not conclude they've lost something there, which is where the zero-sum element comes in. Sometimes you just need to accept you've lost out.

 

[Charlaquin]

Agreement under duress is...a kind of agreement, sure. Doesn't mean you're happy about it.

Well, this phrasing of rule zero doesn’t say everyone has to be happy about the rules change.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That’s why I put it in my title right under my username, so no one has to rely on memory to get it right.

Okay I'm apparently blind. (Or more accurately, have picked up the habit of ignoring titles and such, and in this case didn't think to check).

yes, they/them/theirs is a less egregious error than he/him/his (or some less common pronouns like ze/zem/zeirs) would be. But when directly informed of someone’s preferred form of address, anything other than that form of address stops being an error and starts being an intentional misuse. I am happy to give the benefit of the doubt and assume you just didn’t think to check the title under my username for preferred pronouns - it’s not a universal practice to include them there, and Pelor knows I’ve made similar mistakes plenty of times myself. But, now you know, and you can course-correct moving forward.

Its kind of worse than that; its so common for that space to be filled by, well, null data I've gotten in the habit of ignoring it, but in this case that's on me since if I'd bothered to look I'd have known better.

 

[Charlaquin]

See, there's the problem; I don't really consider that "agreeing" in any non-legal sense.

I mean, fair enough I guess. For what it’s worth I’d say the sense is kind of the most important sense when it comes to making legally-binding agreements. But, who am I at the end of the day besides some rando on the internet.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, this phrasing of rule zero doesn’t say everyone has to be happy about the rules change.

It does say they all have to have fun though. Might be hard to have fun if playing under rules you don't like.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I mean, fair enough I guess. For what it’s worth I’d say the sense is kind of the most important sense when it comes to making legally-binding agreements. But, who am I at the end of the day besides some rando on the internet.

Well, I, heh, agree when it comes to legal documents since its a term-of-art there. But there's a big difference between terms-of-art and general usage, same here as in many places.

 

[Oofta]

It does say they all have to have fun though. Might be hard to have fun if playing under rules you don't like.

Just because you have a goal doesn't mean you have to always meet the goal. You just have to make an effort.

 

[TiQuinn]

I guess I just, well, can't agree. Sometimes there's no entirely compatible decision possible, and someone is going to lose out of a decision. You can make an argument about at what point you should stop arguing a point (because there are more than two people involved in the matter at hand in fairness to the rest) but that still doesn't require the person to not conclude they've lost something there, which is where the zero-sum element comes in. Sometimes you just need to accept you've lost out.

Yes but that last part is really the most important part.

I don’t like Blades in the Dark as a system. I tried it with our group, I voiced my opinion, and I finished the game despite not really liking it. Did I let it distract from the game? No. Did I let anyone else who did like it feel bad? No. I accepted it and when it was time to vote on the next game we wanted to play, I voted against another BitD game.

 

[Charlaquin]

Okay I'm apparently blind. (Or more accurately, have picked up the habit of ignoring titles and such, and in this case didn't think to check).




Its kind of worse than that; its so common for that space to be filled by, well, null data I've gotten in the habit of ignoring it, but in this case that's on me since if I'd bothered to look I'd have known better.

Totally understandable; like I said, I’ve made the same mistake plenty of times myself, which is why I extend the benefit of the doubt whenever reasonably possible.