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

[Micah Sweet]

If you spend a year making something and then pitch it to your players and none of them find it nearly as interesting as you had hoped, is it an issue of them being bad players for not instantly loving whatever you created? Or is the issue that you worked too hard on something without actually confirming that it would be interesting to the people interacting with it?

Because if you're spending an entire year working on a setting before anyone is even allowed to know anything about it, I don't really think players are what you're looking for. I think an audience is what you're looking for.

Or...maybe attention to detail matters to you?

Can you try giving someone in this thread who doesn't agree with you the benefit of the doubt?

 

[Belen]

Play with people who started at 4e or later.

And convince Hollywood to use them in TV and film.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not been an issue in what I've been talking about, because I've carefully steered clear of setting elements.



He shouldn't, automatically. But then, neither should the GM automatically trump him. If it was that bad, shouldn't be hard to get at least one player to want the change too, shouldn't it?

The GM is here, and Crawford isn't. I rather feel that the GM does trump him.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My problem is that there's a lot more going on here than just setting the stage. It's also telling the players what costumes they can wear, and what accents they can have, and what backgrounds they can portray, and whether they're allowed to use facial prostheses, and how they're allowed to relate to one another, and where they're allowed to be from, and what education they're allowed to have, and...

This ceases to be mere staging. You aren't just putting props up and letting folks improv with them. You are taking an extremely strong authorial control over what they are allowed to say, do, and (fictionally) be. It might not be scripted lines, but it's a hell of a lot more than stepping back and letting people do whatever they like.

The PCs can do whatever they want, once play begins. Before that, there may be some restrictions regarding character creation. We can discuss it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is not the only way to do FRPGing, is not an approach I've used since about 40 years ago, and is extremely GM-centred.

All of your assertions here are true, but I'd still much rather play or run a game like @KYRON45 's.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well actually . . .

Most long-running franchises that get RPGs based on them change up their "nailed down" settings all the time. Almost every time a TV series gets another season, a movie gets a sequel, or a franchise gets expanded into novels, comics, and games . . . the setting changes and expands.

The idea that the writers and creators behind these franchises stick to a "nailed down" setting is patently untrue.

The setting changes and expands, but it rarely changes what already happened.

 

[Lanefan]

I think there's also the overlooked solution of not designing a setting with a bunch of stuff players might object to.

If you can spend 6 months designing a setting with just 3 races, and not having any logical way to have more, why not just, ya know, spend that time designing a setting with a place for everything?

Because if I'm going to do all that work I'm going to make the setting I'd most likely want to play in; and that very well might not be a setting that includes (or has a place for) everything.

If someone else wants a setting that has everything they can design it and DM it, and if invited I'll decide whether I want to play in it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Play with people who started at 4e or later.

And convince Hollywood to use them in TV and film.

You mean like a four season Prime animated series?

Or a major motion picture?

 

[Lanefan]

I just find that a lot of DMs-arguing-on-the-internet have a "vision" that is little more than that: a superficial Tolkien knockoff.

So?

A vaguely-Tolkein knockoff, influenced by the whimsy that is Herc-Xena, is pretty much exaclty what I'm after.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You mean like a four season Prime animated series?

Or a major motion picture?

Yeah. Are you talking about Vox Machina?

Give it time.