A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[Hussar]

I already answered this. To look for a trail to follow. That decision was made entirely with character knowledge and perceptions.



We don't know that it's trackless. I'm going in to find out. When I get in, my PC will have more knowledge and perceptions upon which to base further declarations.

How does your character know or even think to know that there might be trails that he cannot see and has no knowledge of? Why are you going to find out? Nothing you can see and no knowledge your character has can even lead to the question. The fact that you, the player, think there might be trails in there means that you are no longer in actor stance.

You are no different than the player who uses fire on the troll. You are acting on your genre knowledge and your understanding of the game. NOTHING about your decision is based on character knowledge or perceptions.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thanks for quoting the perfect support for what I said! Gygax is talking about the DM adding stuff to the game.

I disagree, and there are other paragraphs in the same preface, and the forward which precedes it, which talk about the participants and people bringing things to the game, etc. In fact, Gygax makes quite clear in the following paragraph that his aim isn't to restrict people in what they can do so much as to create a platform where the experience of play can follow a familiar process in each campaign.

"When you build your campaign you will tailor it to suit your personal tastes. In the heat of play i t will slowly evolve into a
compound of your personality and those of your better participants, a superior alloy." --EGG DMG 1e preface

That doesn't sound like it is all on the DM to create everything!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Try using your ability to understand context, and not use some inane "But he didn't spell out Dungeon Master by name. Hur hur!" as some sort of "counter" to my argument.

What he said: I did not include everything, because other people would think of and include things of their own. (paraphrased)

What he did not say: I did not include everything and everything I didn't include is automatically included.

He said that you have to bring those things into the game deliberately. It's right there in the bold. You have to think of those things and deliberately devise them for your game. And in 1e, it was the DM who did those things.

"Naturally, everything possible cannot be included in the whole of this work. As a participant in the game, I would not care to have anyone telling me exactly what must go into a campaign and how it must be handled; if so, why not play some game like chess? As the author I also realize that there are limits to my creativity and imagination. Others will think of things I didn't, and devise things beyond my capability."

Again, I don't think Gygax is necessarily limiting himself here to DMs. He probably DID have them primarily in mind (this is the preface to a DMG after all, and one which explicitly states that players should 'keep out'). However, there's plenty of material and discussion where he talks about what players do, how they relate to DMs, etc. If you were to read the PHB you will also see that there's a good bit about how the players input to the game works. D&D clearly does envisage a DM with overall authority and authorial/editorial control, but the point is nobody, not even Gary, ever thought players were simply supposed to passively accept whatever the DM did. This same preface hints at reasons a campaign might 'die', such as DMs who are too strict!

 

[Maxperson]

How does your character know or even think to know that there might be trails that he cannot see and has no knowledge of? Why are you going to find out? Nothing you can see and no knowledge your character has can even lead to the question. The fact that you, the player, think there might be trails in there means that you are no longer in actor stance.

People growing up in the game world have a working knowledge of trees, forests, plains, flowers, the sky, etc.

You are no different than the player who uses fire on the troll. You are acting on your genre knowledge and your understanding of the game. NOTHING about your decision is based on character knowledge or perceptions.

Unlike basic terrain, trolls are not basic.

Sometimes you make it really hard to take you seriously. I almost laughed at that post as a joke, but I THINK(not entirely sure) you were serious.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Maybe. I mean, I try to check in every 200 comments* or so .... and maybe I'm wrong, but IIRC, it seems to me that one poster introduced those terms, and then continues to use them and further add details to them.

I mean, sure, you could criticize other people for debating over playstyles given the use of obscurantist terms that they aren't perfectly familiar with, but there are no winners, here. It would be like if I began to introduce specialized terms from my profession into a regular argument over something else, and then someone else argued with me over those terms, and I kept dredging up examples of why they're wrong using the specialized definitions.

It's not that I'm wrong, but it's also not helpful. To quote myself- "one rarely convinces people by defining terms." Or, as I try to think of it- jargon is helpful when it is a shortcut to talking to people who are familiar with it for getting across shared concepts, but it is decidedly unhelpful when you are arguing (or convincing) people who don't necessarily agree with you.




That's the exact mix of resignation and disgust I strive for in all my relationships.


*Masochism.

And one NEVER successfully communicates with others without a common language and agreed upon ontology. Never, this is a basic tenet of communications theory. I don't think anyone is misusing language or abusing terminology here. It was introduced in order to clarify, not to obscure.

 

[Maxperson]

I disagree, and there are other paragraphs in the same preface, and the forward which precedes it, which talk about the participants and people bringing things to the game, etc. In fact, Gygax makes quite clear in the following paragraph that his aim isn't to restrict people in what they can do so much as to create a platform where the experience of play can follow a familiar process in each campaign.

"When you build your campaign you will tailor it to suit your personal tastes. In the heat of play i t will slowly evolve into a
compound of your personality and those of your better participants, a superior alloy." --EGG DMG 1e preface

That doesn't sound like it is all on the DM to create everything!

Classic play is the DM creating the world, encounters, adventures, etc., and the players interacting with it. So it becomes a joint session in that the DM doesn't control what the players will have their PCs do with what he plans out. That's how 1e and 2e played out if you went by things as written and intended.

Again, I don't think Gygax is necessarily limiting himself here to DMs. He probably DID have them primarily in mind (this is the preface to a DMG after all, and one which explicitly states that players should 'keep out'). However, there's plenty of material and discussion where he talks about what players do, how they relate to DMs, etc. If you were to read the PHB you will also see that there's a good bit about how the players input to the game works. D&D clearly does envisage a DM with overall authority and authorial/editorial control, but the point is nobody, not even Gary, ever thought players were simply supposed to passively accept whatever the DM did. This same preface hints at reasons a campaign might 'die', such as DMs who are too strict!

As you point out there, the recourse for players who don't like what the DM is creating is to quit(or try to convince the DM to change), not to create things of their own for the DM's game. The players don't have any innate ability to create for the game world in 1e/2e. At least not beyond the initial character creation. What impact they have after play begins is done through PC interaction with the game world.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I already answered this. To look for a trail to follow. That decision was made entirely with character knowledge and perceptions.



We don't know that it's trackless. I'm going in to find out. When I get in, my PC will have more knowledge and perceptions upon which to base further declarations.

But why do you want to follow a trail? I mean, think about you yourself in real life. You are standing at the edge of a forest. You don't just go in without ANY motivation. Using the information and knowledge at your disposal goes without saying, that's not really needing to be spelled out (in the game using ONLY that knowledge and information does, which is why that word was there, not to exclude motivation). So, if real life Max goes into a forest, he has a reason. Now, explain what the reason is that your PC did that. You can't, because you have no idea what might motivate the PC. It has no value system, no goals, no fears, needs, nothing. At best you could say "in order to have an adventure", but given that you have no articulated 'adventuring spirit' in your character, you could only impute even that motive after the fact (author stance). In fact what you have here is pawn or director mode play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Classic play is the DM creating the world, encounters, adventures, etc., and the players interacting with it. So it becomes a joint session in that the DM doesn't control what the players will have their PCs do with what he plans out. That's how 1e and 2e played out if you went by things as written and intended.



As you point out there, the recourse for players who don't like what the DM is creating is to quit(or try to convince the DM to change), not to create things of their own for the DM's game. The players don't have any innate ability to create for the game world in 1e/2e. At least not beyond the initial character creation. What impact they have after play begins is done through PC interaction with the game world.

The players certainly have authority. They can impute any sort of attitude or motivation onto their characters, they can decide what actions they take, and they can decide what their characters know, at least within genre conventions and such. I see NOTHING in AD&D which contradicts any of that.

I believe that, even in AD&D, players also have some authority in terms of the resolution of actions. If a fighter swings at an orc and gets a hit against the orc's AC, the DM isn't normally empowered to negate that (it could happen that there is some hidden factor, D&D doesn't have transparency here). The same goes for things like spells, saving throws, and even things like reaction rolls and loyalty checks (which have spelled-out rules).

I'd also point out that a DM taking actions which would contravene any of the things I've mentioned above is OFTEN, maybe even typically, described as engaging in poor DMing practice, at best. So it is widely acknowledged that DM authority is not at all absolute.

 

[Maxperson]

But why do you want to follow a trail? I mean, think about you yourself in real life. You are standing at the edge of a forest. You don't just go in without ANY motivation. Using the information and knowledge at your disposal goes without saying, that's not really needing to be spelled out (in the game using ONLY that knowledge and information does, which is why that word was there, not to exclude motivation). So, if real life Max goes into a forest, he has a reason. Now, explain what the reason is that your PC did that. You can't, because you have no idea what might motivate the PC. It has no value system, no goals, no fears, needs, nothing. At best you could say "in order to have an adventure", but given that you have no articulated 'adventuring spirit' in your character, you could only impute even that motive after the fact (author stance). In fact what you have here is pawn or director mode play.

Sure. Presumably there was prior play that got me to the forest, so I would have more to go on than the bare bones I'm describing. I'm only limiting myself to the bare bones in this instance to show that I can still make decisions in actor stance, even in a highly limited situation than that. I have also been in similar positions more than once. Some DMs I have played with occasionally started the campaign off with us in the middle of nowhere and said, "What do you do?" I was still able to step into my character and make decisions as him.

 

[Maxperson]

The players certainly have authority. They can impute any sort of attitude or motivation onto their characters, they can decide what actions they take, and they can decide what their characters know, at least within genre conventions and such. I see NOTHING in AD&D which contradicts any of that.

I believe that, even in AD&D, players also have some authority in terms of the resolution of actions. If a fighter swings at an orc and gets a hit against the orc's AC, the DM isn't normally empowered to negate that (it could happen that there is some hidden factor, D&D doesn't have transparency here). The same goes for things like spells, saving throws, and even things like reaction rolls and loyalty checks (which have spelled-out rules).

I'd also point out that a DM taking actions which would contravene any of the things I've mentioned above is OFTEN, maybe even typically, described as engaging in poor DMing practice, at best. So it is widely acknowledged that DM authority is not at all absolute.

From the 1e DMG.

"Know the game systems, and you will know how and when to take upon yourself the ultimate power. To become the final arbiter, rather than the interpreter of the rules, can be a difficult and demanding task, and it cannot be undertaken lightly, for your players expect to play this game, not one made up on the spot. By the same token, they are playing the game the way you, their DM, imagines and creates it."

The game is pretty clearly the DMs. Gygax does often caution against abusing the power or altering things too much, but he has in fact given that ultimate power to the DM.