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

[Thomas Shey]

Good. Someone's gotta stir the pot sometimes.

The campaign ends there only if the PCs manage to run themselves into a TPK,

You're really got to stop assuming everyone has the ultra-sandbox approach you do, man. In most cases just following the flow unlimitedly is not what GMs are interested in doing, and to assume they will in this situation is just projecting what, as far as I can tell, is pretty fringe approach on the rest of the hobby.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

At game start, when the idea is presented to potential players, they have zero invested. The DM as months invested. So I'm not going to work making something that doesn't resonate with me. I'm going to make a setting, probably different from my last one, that resonates with me because that will make me passionate and invested. That then will make a better experience for those players who do want that setting.

Exactly: the players are not invested. It is the DM's responsibility to GET them invested. Meaning, the DM must earn their investment.

Which is what I've been saying all along.

If I have an idea for a setting that intrigues me, then yes forcing in something I ruled out is going to ruin that setting. I've already done the work. It's an accept or reject.

So...just so we're clear here...anything that even remotely deviates from your preconceived notions about the setting would instantly ruin it forever for you?

That seems like a pretty excessive commitment. But if it isn't that extreme, if alteration or change is possible, then your absolutist "my way or the highway" conclusion cannot hold.

The point is that it is a two way street. I offer and you either accept or reject. I'm not upset either way.

That's...not a two-way street. That's one person having all the control, and the other person being strung along.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Ah, so it's not a castle but a spite rectangle built to make a point that only one person at the table gets to try to be a smartass about someone saying they're going to talk to the king.

« Spite rectangle ». Chef’s kiss. No notes.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That would only make sense if the DM had already framed the castle as being heavily guarded and impossible to enter.

It’s a castle. Being well defended is implied in the name.

If I'm meeting with the king in the capital, I'm assuming this is a palace with courtly functions, not a military stockade or a private residence

A Royal Residence is all three of those things. And there is no way any head of state will just meet with any old person, like ever. You know those guys with the red coats and big hats outside Buckingham Palace? Their guns are real and loaded, they are not just decorative. And the king isn’t even there very often.

And in my experience, in D&D, when a player says they want to “meet” the king, their purpose is to assassinate the king.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not your slave.

Nor am I yours.

Mod note:
Slavery? Folks, you are talking about being at a game table, not about being under threat of becoming literal chattel.

There has been red text in this thread three times in the last day or so. One would imagine that should be your cue to not engage in hyperbolic rhetoric. Since neither of you seem interested in moderating yourselves... you're done in this discussion.

Everyone else, keep perspective. Recognize when it is time to cease and desist, because if we have to recognize it for you, you probably won't like it.

 

[TwoSix]

You're really got to stop assuming everyone has the ultra-sandbox approach you do, man. In most cases just following the flow unlimitedly is not what GMs are interested in doing, and to assume they will in this situation is just projecting what, as far as I can tell, is pretty fringe approach on the rest of the hobby.

To be fair to Lanefan, I do run most of my games in a pretty similar "whatever the players do, that's where the game goes" way.

Just that Lanefan runs the equivalent of a 30-year continuous soap opera with a rotating cast, and my games are like an 8 episode reality show.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not really sure how that responds to what was said. With a homebrew setting you've spent "hundreds" of hours building (word used not by you but by others in the thread), it's not possible for them to have read up. So now their play is going to be full of nearly unavoidable "well actually" moments because the players cannot possibly know the setting as well as the DM can. That very specific thing--the "you can't do X because that's incompatible with the setting as it exists in my head, which you cannot access"--is closely related to what @TwoSix is talking about.

That's what the setting primer is for. I thought I said that.

 

[FrozenNorth]

You always have to see bad faith everywhere, haven't you? Your world must be so miserable.

The world is less spiteful and miserable than one where the guards stab you immediately after you walk up to the front gate and politely ask for an audience with the king.

 

[Belen]

Let’s go back to the Wookie Jedi example. Though some posters have suggested that there are Wookie Jedi in canon, for the purposes of the example, I’ll assume that Wookie are weak in the force and can’t be Jedi.

If a DM pitches a Star Wars game and a player wants to only play a Wookie Jedi and is unwilling to compromise, they are being unreasonable. Particularly if the DM tries to meet them halfway:
« Wookies aren’t force sensitive. How about a Wookie that works for the Jedi order as an agent, but can’t use force powers? »

But the reverse is just as unreasonable. A DM who pitches a Star Wars game but doesn’t allow a player to play a Twi’lek Jedi and isn’t willing to compromise is being equally unreasonable, given that there are several canon non-human Jedi.

By running a Star Wars game, the DM is already ceding a large chunk of control of the setting at the beginning. Star Wars is a setting. The players should expect to play Star Wars.

This is the same for any mass media setting. If I run a campaign in FR, then I do not have authority to deny people things available in FR although I will still say "no evil PCs."

I do not run D&D games in published settings though because I always feel that the PCs cannot be special if Elminster is running around. I run games in Delos or Elisan (my two settings) and then I do control many things. I often limit species because I just cannot imagine 50,000 different species co-existing in the same place.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If the players aren't interested in taking the game seriously in the way the GM aspires to, does anyone think that rule zero is the solution?

Sadly, in the past some people apparently have, as visible from the people who thought (and sometimes still do) that the solution to essentially out-of-game problems is in-game consequences.

Right.

Though as I've noted in the past that's not a panacea, either.

This seems to be less about the players engaging with the setting and more about the GM wanting to run a railroad (or something in that neighbourhood) while not being willing to be upfront about that.

And it's certainly a long, long way from the sort of approach to RPGing that I'm looking for. (As player or GM.)

That seems a bit unfair. They predicated it on the players not apparently being able to find their own way in the game. For better or worse, a lot of players do need at least nudges and hooks to get going, and that isn't intrinsically the sign of a railroad.