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

[Oofta]

No, it's not the same as saying that. You need to start reading what people write and respond to that instead of responding to what you think they're saying.

If someone out there hates collaboration, then a more collaborative game is not better.

If a game allows an additional type of collaboration than another, then there is (potentially, anyway) more collaboration.

That's the trade off... you enjoy building your world ahead of time, over years of DMing? Okay cool... do that. It's not a problem in any way. I've done that in the past and I loved it. But, by definition, doing that is less collaborative than involving the players in building a world.

You've been advocating for denying player input throughout this thread. Not in every way... yes, players can have input, but only in such and such way. Now, you feel you have a good reason for restricting that collaboration... okay, fine. I understand your view, even if I don't agree with a lot of the stated reasons. But you're still limiting collaboration. There's really no avoiding that.

It'd be a lot easier to discuss if we could just acknowledge that.

You're saying that unless we play your way the game is automatically, guaranteed to have less player collaboration and involvement. Collaboration and involvement are generally considered positives.

While you collaborate and involve the players in a different fashion than I do your players are not automatically more collaborative and, especially, not more involved (whatever that means). My players may be just as involved, our game might be just as collaborative, just in a different fashion.

Collaborative? I run a very player directed campaign, both by reacting flexibly to what the characters do and by discussing options outside of game. They are definitely involved, knowing that what their characters say and do matters.

It's obviously going to be a bit apples and oranges. But a DM could allow all sorts of minor player input and still run a very linear game. Just because players during the game through the words and actions of their characters during the game does not mean they are not involved.

 

[pemerton]

Don’t the FATE system games work something like that? I’ve tried reading the rules a couple of times but I really need to join a game to see how it works.

I've never played Fate. I've read the Fate Core rules, and just had a quick skim now of the basic action resolution rules. It seems pretty standard in basic outline, but - as makes sense for an Aspect-oriented game - there are suggestions and examples of play where the GM invites the players to help establish what is going on in the fiction.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It's not weird... it's just different. It depends on the goals of play.

Like map and key type D&D, or a Call of Cthulhu mystery... they may be set up to function with this hidden persistent world that the PCs will encounter and will navigate using their abilities and player skill to try and "solve" the scenario. Beat the dungeon and get the treasure or find the source of madness in the small town and banish it. Or what have you.

But that type of set up is very much about skilled play. There's a lot more game there than there tends to be in most examples of 5e play. In 5e, the goals may or may not be about achieving some win condition. Some folks may say it is, some folks may say it's more about creating a compelling story sequence of events, and to portray an interesting character.

I reject your notion that my approach doesn't do the those last things as well. It absolutely does.

When 5e is the topic of conversation, I assume much more of the latter than the former.

So in that sense, something like the Odin situation... I think that's cool portrayal of character (or at least, it's the opportunity for it) with meaningful stuff at play. Now, because of the way I tend to run 5e, I haven't prepped a ton of stuff ahead of time... so I have no personal investment in the setting elements that may be the "correct" way to try and resolve this problem. I simply don't have it, so I don't care about it. There won't be any wasted prep if I let the player's idea work. Plus, there will be meaningful consequences related to the request, which will offer inspiration for further exploration in play. Not exploration of the fictional geography, but if character and theme and such.

So... depending on what the goal of play may be, this approach may or may not make sense.

I have not told you how to run your games. But I have told you why I don't run my game like that.

A cleric as in the character? Or the player of the cleric?

Both. Cleric has at least a rough idea how divine will empower them the player knows what the character knows and on top of that knows as meta information that the classes have certain features that allow them to do stuff and are balanced around that.

I mean, a player may or may not be aware of some setting implications. The cleric themselves are going to have a kind of different view of things.

I could easily see a player's interpretation of what their cleric does to be beseeching their deity for divine favor and miracles. So why would the character not beseech him to find some unfindable object? Why would they not see this as a spell or similar ritual? And if their prayers are normally answered, why would they not expect it? Even if it's not by the deity directly, but by a servant or in some roundabout way or what have you.

Character may beseech it, it is still not going to work as they don't have a spell or feature for it because that is how the divine favour is represented in this game. Now if the character actually has commune spell or divine intervention feature, or something like that that, then it is another matter.

Yes, it should be about incorporating that relationship into play. To putting it to the test, to put it into conflict with other things and see what happens.

Honestly, I'd say that what @Oofta described as his default approach was much more just filling in blanks on the character sheet. Odin just seems like a deity selected from an approved list and the vague "source" of the PCs abilities.

You don't know that and such an assumption seems uncharitable. That how actual divine favour works closely follows the rules, doesn't mean that there couldn't or wouldn't be personal connection with the divine. Like no one has said that is a bad thing.

Sure, but it also means they may challenge those assumptions. To push against the status quo a bit. Which seems pretty foundational to the fantasy genre.

I think you're trying to perform linguistic switcheroo here. "challenging status quo" might indeed be very appropriate for fantasy genre, but we are usually talking about societal structures, morals, organisations and evil overlords, not the foundations of the reality. Granted, fantasy being fantasy, I'm sure the latter occasionally happens as well.

Maybe it was hidden from divination?

Again, I don't know... there could be any number of setting reasons. It all amounts to "The DM wrote X down in his notebook six months ago, and he is invested in X and values it more than the player's Y... so X it's gonna be."

Or you could assume good faith play. Like that the GM is writing this setting in order for the players to be able to play in it, so they would not write it in plainly stupid and inaccessible way to begin with. And it is not about "not valuing player input" or anything like that, it is having solid foundations and stucture the players can leverage.

Yes, and I've said that the GM can say no, too. I'm just advocating for more instances of saying yes.

More than what? You don't know how often I say "yes" or "no," so on what basis are you advocating that I should be saying "yes" more?

There is no objective reality. It's all made up. There's only preference and our reasons for those preferences... again, shaped by the goals of play.

That it is all made up, doesn't mean that it doesn't matter how, when and why it is made up. And there indeed can be things that are both objective and fictional. Lord of the Rings is fiction. We can still state facts that are either objectively true or false regarding that fictional setting.

Sure. Again, to go back to the Odin example... I expect that this was something meant to be dealt with in some other way, and very likely at a higher level. And so that needed to be preserved in some way.

That's still gating things.

If by "gating" you mean that the characters do not instantly and automatically get everything they want, then sure. But there is no game without some amount of such "gating."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That is a good example of the boundary pushing that certain players would explore. So not a fan.

It indeed is. And as player, I would just like to know where the boundary actually is, so that I don't accidentally commit the faux pas of pushing it. I think the good thing in "GM veto" approach is that the player doesn't need to second guess whether their suggestion goes too far, as it is the GM's job to decide that and veto such things.

 

[hawkeyefan]

You're saying that unless we play your way the game is automatically, guaranteed to have less player collaboration and involvement.

No. I’m saying that if a game allows more ways to collaborate… more opportunities for it… then it will tend to produce more collaboration.

I’m talking about collaboration on elements of the setting. Who contributes to the lore of the game world.

I mean… whose home brew world do you expect involved more collaboration with players, yours or mine?

Collaboration and involvement are generally considered positives.

I don’t care what they are generally considered. I stated that I am describing them simply as an aspect of gaming. I am literally setting aside preference to look at them as objective qualities.

You guys are shooting down collaborative ideas. Which is entirely your prerogative. But to then claim “no, no collaboration is just as important in my game”? How can that be?

While you collaborate and involve the players in a different fashion than I do your players are not automatically more collaborative and, especially, not more involved (whatever that means). My players may be just as involved, our game might be just as collaborative, just in a different fashion.

What way do you collaborate with your players that you expect I do not when playing D&D?

Collaborative? I run a very player directed campaign, both by reacting flexibly to what the characters do and by discussing options outside of game. They are definitely involved, knowing that what their characters say and do matters.

Yes, I am in no way saying that your game has zero collaboration. You need to stop with this all or nothing lens through which you view everything people are saying.

The kind of game I’m talking about has a whole additional way for collaboration to manifest.

It's obviously going to be a bit apples and oranges. But a DM could allow all sorts of minor player input and still run a very linear game. Just because players during the game through the words and actions of their characters during the game does not mean they are not involved.

Sure, of course they could. Do you expect that’s the case though? That folks are finding ways to let players contribute to world building so that we can railroad them?

 

[Oofta]

No. I’m saying that if a game allows more ways to collaborate… more opportunities for it… then it will tend to produce more collaboration.

I’m talking about collaboration on elements of the setting. Who contributes to the lore of the game world.

I mean… whose home brew world do you expect involved more collaboration with players, yours or mine?



I don’t care what they are generally considered. I stated that I am describing them simply as an aspect of gaming. I am literally setting aside preference to look at them as objective qualities.

You guys are shooting down collaborative ideas. Which is entirely your prerogative. But to then claim “no, no collaboration is just as important in my game”? How can that be?



What way do you collaborate with your players that you expect I do not when playing D&D?



Yes, I am in no way saying that your game has zero collaboration. You need to stop with this all or nothing lens through which you view everything people are saying.

The kind of game I’m talking about has a whole additional way for collaboration to manifest.



Sure, of course they could. Do you expect that’s the case though? That folks are finding ways to let players contribute to world building so that we can railroad them?

I'm saying that you can have a patina of collaboration and still run a linear game. Simply having more options does not mean that the options available have greater impact.

Ultimately of course it doesn't really matter, I just get tired of hearing that my game is somehow "less" because I do things differently.

 

[LordOfTheWaffleHouse]

I'm reading this but I keep getting snagged on one repeated detail in all of this: since when has the Trojan Horse contained any Trojan Warriors? Did I read a different Iliad?

Or is this like when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

No, that's me Waffling on my typing from splitting my attention too much between too many things. It was the Greeks who used the Trojan Horse to sac the city of Troy. I'm highly intelligent, I swear.

I as well. But I think this is actually an interesting topic, around which there is sometimes some genuine tension. I often play my characters "suboptimally," doing "stupid things" because "that's what my character would do." And if this leads to adverse consequences just for my character, then that's fine. But when it leads to significant trouble for other characters as well, there might be some tension.

I think the issue most are concerned about though are the players who do "disruptive things" but call them "chaotic and stupid for the lulz" and fall back on the excuse that "it's what my character would do". I have DEFINETLY seen more of those players in more recent years than at anytime prior. I try to discourage that kind of thing at my table, if only for the sake of role play.

I view it kind of like the concept of atheism in the settings, the Gods are established aspects of the universe. In real life there is no physical, tangible evidence that the Christian/Norse/Muslim Deity, or ghosts, monsters, or demons, are real. We have no idea what the afterlife is like, if there even is one, as there is no way to communicate directly with any deity that might exist, no way to test or measure it, and they most definitely don't send down avatars and divine signs or any of the major acts you see in any campaign setting. All religions on earth are a matter of faith, so being an atheist isn't that particularly far fetched of an idea. In ANY campaign setting though, it's absolutely only something a madman would do, because the Gods routinely make their presence VERY known to the people of the world through a variety of methods, whether it's sending down an occasional avatar to do something, empowering their clerics to cast spells, or literally throwing a mountain at the heretic city after warning the main heretic to stop being a moron (cough cough Dragonlance cough). There are those who DOUBT the Gods power, because Deities CAN die in most of these settings, though there is no question that they are very, VERY real. If you are an Atheist or Devout <insert religion here> IRL, no one really bats an eyelash. If you are an atheist in the Realms, everyone assumes you are touched in the head and probably staying more than 60 feet away from you to avoid collateral damage from any smiting that may occur.

 

[soviet]

I'm saying that you can have a patina of collaboration and still run a linear game. Simply having more options does not mean that the options available have greater impact.

Ultimately of course it doesn't really matter, I just get tired of hearing that my game is somehow "less" because I do things differently.

But it literally is less collaborative. Contributions to the game that hawkeye or myself would say yes to, you would say no to. Players are less able to collaborate with you in creating the world around them.

You may say that's a kind of collaboration you don't want, or your players don't want even. That's fine. And no-one is saying that collaboration is the only measure of a game's worth or enjoyment level. You presumably feel that having a lower level of this kind of player collaboration enables you to have a higher level of GM auteur vision, or a better focus on IC exploration. That's fine too.

 

[LordOfTheWaffleHouse]

I'm saying that you can have a patina of collaboration and still run a linear game. Simply having more options does not mean that the options available have greater impact.

It's worth pointing out that not all options are "good" options, either. A decent number of homebrew and official rules over the years have been, to put it bluntly, absolute trash. A great example of this was the old 3.5 supplement "Weapons of Legacy", which had thematically really awesome and cool weapons... But the drawbacks to obtaining them and unlocking their powers were often so detrimental in the long run that no one really bothered using them. Just because you have the option doesn't necessarily mean you should TAKE the option. Sometimes that option is tantamount to "shooting oneself in the foot".

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm saying that you can have a patina of collaboration and still run a linear game. Simply having more options does not mean that the options available have greater impact.

Ultimately of course it doesn't really matter, I just get tired of hearing that my game is somehow "less" because I do things differently.

You are actively and specifically pointing out how you do less collaboration in this regard. I’m only going off what you say.

It’s fine. It doesn't mean your game is bad or somehow not good. You just don’t value collaboration of the kind being talked about. You don’t prefer it, as you've said quite often. So why should it be in your game?