D&D General Alternate thought - rule of cool is bad for gaming

[overgeeked]

Yup. As I've noted, the only problem with "no gaming is better than bad gaming" is that some people seem to use a definition of "bad" that is, to say the least, awfully expansive. That's their right, but then, they don't get to be all huffy about it.

Most people seem to categorize gaming into two buckets. Either it's 100% exactly perfectly what they want or it's bad, terrible, and no good crap and the referee should feel bad for not providing the perfect gaming experience. I've run into that often enough that I've simply gone back to laying things out up front exactly what my style is and players can self-select from there. I still have zero problems filling tables using that approach.

 

[Lanefan]

My only suggestion is a GM who is inflexible and has a very old school top-down approach shouldn't be surprised if at some point that leaves him with no players--and that I don't necessarily consider them presenting an ultimatum on that fact inappropriate, since it might be salutary to make it clear not everyone buys the "GM is God" thing as a given. If that leads him to pitching them, and then not being able to find others, it might be helpful to do some introspection and decide if that actually is an acceptable tradeoff to not changing things up. It may well be.

But the kicker is, you don't get to get soggy because people are not willing to play exactly what you're offering, either. And I see plenty of that around here.

Flip side: it's not just DMs who present ultimatums. Look at how many examples we see in here of people saying "I won't play in a game that has xxxxx" - or "I won't play in a game unless it has yyyyy" - where xxxxx and yyyyy could be a species, a setting element, a trope, a creature, or whatever.

In singular instances such ultimatums are often dealable-withable; but in amagamation they could easily lead to the DM just saying eff this, run your own game.

As DMs are and always have been spread thinner on the ground than players, this is probably not a winning approach.

 

[overgeeked]

Had a much longer reply mostly done, then my computer decided to take a nap and all that typing went poof; so I'll boil it down to this:

Rules-as-physics (or, perhaps, physics as rules) provide a baseline underpinning that allows a character to try anything, whether "within" the game rules or not, with a vague sense of what might happen next.

Gravity is an unwritten game rule because we already know how it works, reflected by jumping and falling rules etc. The ways in which magic interacts with and affects other in-game physics (as in, at the base level) should be written game rules such that we all know how it works and can extrapolate and-or rationalize other game rules on top of it cf gravity vs jumping.

Rules-as-physics doesn't need - or mean - a rule to cover every possibility. In fact, the opposite is almost the case: if the physics-as-rules are nailed down the DM is in a far better position to make consistent calls when players try things the game rules don't already cover.

And that, assuming realism is your goal, is the core of the Free Kriegsspiel Renaissance mindset. The referee can handle adjudicating things just as well, if not better than, the rule book. The next step is to apply that to what most games already cover in their rules and defer to the referee.

 

[Lanefan]

If you are saying it again, you've perhaps missed the point.

Yes, OMG, if the GM isn't happy the game will end! If the players aren't happy, the game will also end.

"The players" aren't always a bloc. If the DM (one person) isn't happy, the game is sunk. If a player (one person) isn't happy, that player can leave (and maybe or maybe not be replaced) and the game continues. Significant difference.

The far-less-common case where the players en bloc are unhappy is a different thing again.

 

[overgeeked]

"The players" aren't always a bloc. If the DM (one person) isn't happy, the game is sunk. If a player (one person) isn't happy, that player can leave (and maybe or maybe not be replaced) and the game continues. Significant difference.

The far-less-common case where the players en bloc are unhappy is a different thing again.

Exactly. It's such a weirdly and intentionally bad framing. You need one referee and 1-50+ players. If a player leaves, as long as you still have one or more left, the game can keep going. If the one referee drops out, that's the end. Even if all the players drop out...the referee can simply find more players and keep running the same campaign world. Depending on how it's set up, can even run the exact same game...just with new PCs.

 

[Kannik]

Also, Apocalypse World is a very different game than non-4e D&D.

Just to note that Apocalypse World and PbtA world games in general are very/vastly different games from 4e D&D as well.

So, all of D&D (and plenty of other games as well; PbtA is quite a different approach).

 

[KYRON45]

While I don't advocate a "my way or the highway" mindset; I do advocate a "this is the game i'm setting up to play won't you join us?" atmosphere.

 

[overgeeked]

While I don't advocate a "my way or the highway" mindset; I do advocate a "this is the game i'm setting up to play won't you join us?" atmosphere.

They're not as different as you seem to think. The result is identical and the presentation is nearly identical.

 

[KYRON45]

They're not as different as you seem to think. The result is identical and the presentation is nearly identical.

Letting them know what they are getting into vs dropping bombs on them after they start is just as different t as it needs to be for them to make a decision. But thank you for clarifying what I think; that never gets old.

 

[Umbran]

"The players" aren't always a bloc. ...

The far-less-common case where the players en bloc are unhappy is a different thing again.

The scenario that brought us to this part of the discussion is, as I recall it, that having considered compromise on initial presentation for one character, other players are jumping on the bandwagon. So... they kind of are a block.

If the DM (one person) isn't happy, the game is sunk.

So, here's a perspective problem that is rather central to the discussion.

Maybe to the GM who is unwilling to compromise, "the game" - the thing they want to run - is somehow special. But to the players... not really? In this scenario, we are still talking about compromise around character generation. Play of "the game" hasn't even begun! The players (individually, and as a group) haven't invested much, so no big loss.

In this scenario, the GM, who is apparently invested in this offering enough to reject players over its integrity, is the one who has something to lose.

GMs, and their specific visions, are not irreplaceably special.