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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6420746" data-attributes="member: 6696971">1)  We're grown men and women on here.  We have mortgages, we're accountable to ourselves and responsible for more than just ourselves, we've suffered tragedy, and we've all endured loss and carry on.  We aren't children believing in Santa and the Tooth-Fairy.  We're just talking about elfgames and the varying system mechanics, GMing principles, and play agendas and how they work to create a sum total table TTRPGing experience.2)  I'm addressing a specific contention (one that I, and others, have addressed many times).  That contention being that D&D is (a) metagame-averse and (b) a simulator of process.  Neither are true.  Some folks may play that way (there was certainly a segment of the greater D&D culture that revolted against metagame influence with AD&D 2e and Dragonlance) and they may personally have an agenda that is metagame-averse (I really feel like I've stepped into a time machine and gone back to the early 90s with folks working overtime to sanitize the greater D&D culture from any metagame influence...the "big tent" should really have been called "wee teepee").  However, that doesn't make it so and it doesn't make folks who openly embrace the metagame not part of the TTRPG club.Folks, specifically those who talk about being metagame-averse, shift from actor stance to pawn stance regularly!  Even if they're truly interested in fully inhabiting their PC, D&D is an extremely rules-heavy system with a large amount of embedded metagame system contrivance and metagame overhead required by the user.  Those same players will inevitably be simultaneously in "player mode" (pawn stance - top down viewing of the PC as a game piece conduit for their personal machinations) as they're effectively looking to enjoy a strategic game of Portal (full-on asymmetric puzzle-solving mode) as they try to figure out the puzzle or figure out/game the GM...or they're performing the mental overhead to maximize their action economy or resolution math...or group synergy for the coming round of actions...or planning a spell/magic item "Fastball Special" power play with another character...or they're thinking on implications of future PC build choices (etc etc)!  Or heck, they might be deploying resources or interfacing with game mechanics that are utterly antagonistic to maintaining complete immersion (such as the combat action economy or hit points)!This is why analyzing varying agendas and how they might be at tension with one another (eg the classic, inevitable synthesis of actor stance and pawn stance in D&D) is important for the ongoing health of our hobby and, hopefully, its evolution (rather than stagnation).  Systems, techniques, and principles can alleviate or exacerbate varying issues (while possibly simultaneously causing problems somewhere else down the line).  For instance, a few ways to lessen the tension of actor stance and pawn stance in D&D is (1) fail-forward GMing techniques and (2) xp for failure/fallout (on the PC directly or on their assets/relationships/aims) or for interesting resolution of character aspects or quests.  Those GMing techniques and system components alleviate the tension of actor stance and pawn stance.  They protagonize PCs, increase the pace of play, and promote heroic approaches by players to conflict resolution (rather than turtling/abundant caution or pace-bogging resource management obsession).  However, they may negatively impact the "Portal" (strategic puzzle solving/resource management at the metagame level) portion of play that some players enjoy as much, or more, than anything else.  Running right alongside that would be the calls decrying "player entitlement" because that pawn stance mentality of "earn your advancement/xp by solving the resource-management and GM puzzle minigame" is a primal component of D&D precisely because of its wargaming roots and evolution.So it isn't an easy conundrum to solve.  But we should talk about it.  And we should be as transparent as possible when we do.  Or we can just tell people that they aren't part of the D&D or TTRPGing club because they have different approaches to play than we do.</blockquote>

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