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

[TwoSix]

I've mentioned the GM having a tiebreaker vote several times. Giving the GM a tiny bit of authority more than any individual other player is not even close to the same as they having all authority this side of everyone taking a walk. It just says you probably want to have somebody be able to do so, and while you could have a designated player who does instead of the GM, there's no particular reason not to have that vested in them, too.

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?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Setting should come before character in my view. Just like real life.

I have no idea what this sentence means. What are "setting" and "character" in real life? Because as far as I'm concerned in real life both concepts have zero applicability. "Characters" and "settings" are both fictions. You might use a real place as the inspiration or basis for a setting, but it would still necessarily be a fictional thing some distance removed from the real one.

 

[TwoSix]

Absolutely! Multiple have said it is never acceptable, for any reason, to have any discussion actually at the table. If you try, you're a problem and you will be removed. This effectively nixes the vast majority of possibilities of discussion, particularly because in my experience, even with very good DMs, discussion outside of game is akin to Mr. Sopwith's description of how many camels he's spotted: "Nearly...ooh...nearly one." "Nearly one?" "Call it none."

That's crazy to me. I routinely spend 30 minutes to an hour before and after games discussing in-game and meta-game options with my players who are interested, and we also have text chains and emails to discuss campaign stuff.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have to point out an exception in this thread: Lanefan has repeatedly indicated he finds consistency crucial, not only in this thread but others. I might disagree with him about any number of things, but he's been pretty, well, consistent about as an expectation from both sides of the table.

Every reference to it from @Lanefan has seemed quite brief and perfunctory to me. To the tune of spending maybe a sentence or two on it, and then three paragraphs about something completely unrelated.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I have seen very little evidence that there are "milder opinions." It seems very clear to me that there are two camps: "Shut up and obey the DM or leave and never darken my door again," and "alright, let's have a talk and figure out how we can both enjoy this."

Every time I have presented these two things, the consistent refrain is, "Yes, that first option is absolutely required," and almost always with the "and if the second thing doesn't work, what then? Huh? How do you fix that? You don't. That's why the first one is mandatory."

I'm not sure where I'd land. I've been pretty clear about my feelings regarding rules decisions, but my feelings about setting issues are complex and not easily summarized, and I'm not sure they'd land in either your view or the "my campaign and what I say about setting elements stands" group.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Calm down. Just explain what you mean then. You seem to be hostile to the idea that the players should endeavour to create character concepts that fit the setting, yet when an example is provided, you think it is a strawman.

I gotta say, many, using an extreme case as an example isn't the sort of thing liable to make people assume you're bringing it up in good faith. While Ezekial runs hot on this, I don't really think you helped.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's crazy to me. I routinely spend 30 minutes to an hour before and after games discussing in-game and meta-game options with my players who are interested, and we also have text chains and emails to discuss campaign stuff.

Even with my own players, who are troopers and with only very rare exceptions fully positive and committed participants, discussion outside of game has almost exclusively been driven by me, because I try very hard to get as much productive feedback as possible. Several will even say they'll hit me up between sessions, and that has happened all of like...twice, maybe three times for multiple players in the 6+ years I've been running this specific campaign.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So what do you believe are the reasons you have been unable to find games? You must have ideas as to why you haven't been accepted into some of the games you may have applied for, or were unable to find games that matched the requirements you would need to have to play in them, or why the games you did play in ended much earlier than planned for. Presumably you have analyzed the issues you've had in this endeavor and have made determinations on what would have to change (either in your own requirements and preferences, or in the places to look for other opportunities.)

But if there's really this big gap between what you think is necessary and what others do and none of us can figure out where the discrepancy lies... then none of us here are going to be able help out to either shed light on what might be the potential problem, or give recommendations on what might need to happen going forward.

I wasn't asking for such advice, so while I appreciate that you are trying to be productive, this is pretty much a total non sequitur.

I was simply trying to respectfully respond to the (mostly irrelevant) argument of "you just need to find a group!" Because that somehow magically wishes away any concerns about whether the rules, procedures, and advice written into a system's books--which is the actual topic of the thread!--are actually well-made or not.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If I sign up to play Star Trek, there are no Wookies but I would expect Vulcans. If sign up to play LotR/MERP, there are no Dragonborn but I would expect Dwarves. If I sign up to play D&D, I would expect Elves and Dragonborn, both of which are right there in the rulebook.

Now maybe Artra is sufficiently compelling, despite its lack of Elves, that I can get on board. But speaking at least for myself, I wouldn't have the sort of independent interest in an Artra game that I might have in a Star Trek or LotR/MERP game.

Well, I do have to point out Star Trek and LotR are both settings and systems, where D&D is avowedly just the latter. Someone telling you they're running a D&D campaign probably is telling you at least some minimalist things about the system in play, but it doesn't automatically tell you anything about which races and classes (as two examples) are available. I agree most people would expect it does, but that's not an absolute given (unlike someone, say, who says they're running a Forgotten Realms game).

 

[Clint_L]

I feel like all the DMG is suggesting is the game’s more fun if you let go of your ego a tiny bit and practice some empathy. There seems to be a lot of extrapolating drawn from that.