D&D General Creativity?

[EzekielRaiden]

In your example you, the GM, were still making the final call. Yes, the power was something that was sort of made up and justified in the moment, but you still decided it could work and had a systematic way of deciding if it did actually work. The player had more flexibility on how to apply a spell, but the GM still makes the final ruling. It doesn't sound all that different from things I've seen in D&D on a pretty regular basis.

Which is why I get so confused when people insist rhat it MUST be the DM putting their foot down. I didn't do that. I didn't make some kind of hard final judgment. Had the example player pushed back, we would have kept talking until we worked it out. We always do work it out, and find something both I and the player consider acceptable. I have never, not once, had to tell one of my players "well that's just what it is, if you don't like it you aren't obligated to keep playing." Nothing even remotely like it. I budged, in the hypothetical, giving the player something I didn't think the rules as such permitted, because they explained how it made sense, another player backed them up, and they recognized that a lesser version of their initial proposal would still do what they truly wanted. I just don't understand how that can be parsed as the DM laying down the law and telling people what to do; at every point, the player was the one directing the show, I (at absolute most) simply gave gentle nudges.

People present D&D like it's a Hobbesian dictatorship: a place where you MUST have a single, absolute, unquestionable authority to keep the proles in check or everything will GUARANTEED descend into violent anarchy. That's why I push back so hard. I see it as being just as wrong about running games as Hobbes was about running states.

Some people seem to be pushing this idea that you have to be run a game that has a more collaborative structure than standard D&D in order to be creative at all.

I don't think it's a requirement for creativity. I just think it's so massively helpful for creativity that refusing to do so is a bit like refusing to refrigerate food for preservation purposes. Sure, you don't need to...most food can be eaten quickly enough without a fridge and our ancestors lived with nothing but iceboxes or cellars, or even no chilling of food at all (e.g. salting, pickling, canning, candying, etc.) But when refrigeration is cheap, plentiful, and incredibly useful, why wouldn't you use it?

Outside of DM horror stories, there is a fair amount of collaboration in D&D, at least in my decades of experience. It is more in the exploration and social tiers of play, although not limited to those tiers.

I find that creativity blooms everywhere when you take a highly collaborative approach, because collaboration adds prosocial rewards to being creative. Instead of it being a transgressive act, it becomes a socially affirming one: the creative player is strengthening the group, not exploiting it. This makes altruistic motives ("I want us all to have fun and succeed") point in the same direction as self-interested ones (whether they are outrightly selfish or more of the "enlightened self-interest" variety.) When self-interest and altruism can be aligned in this way, it is very worth doing, because then most people will feel motivated in similar directions despite not necessarily sharing the same reason for doing so. That is, they will work the same way even though they don't think the same way.

Also throw in this idea that any lore or genre limitations for the game also destroys creativity.

I don't think they destroy creativity in the abstract, but I find that most people who actually enforce genre limitations (as opposed to actually persuading players that these limits are worthwhile) go too far. It isn't just (say) low fantasy: it's specifically a pseudo-medieval faux-European faux-Medieval schizotech "grim and gritty" Tolkienesque low fantasy where every game only offers the four oldest classes and (at best) the four oldest races(/species/whatever) and nothing else forever. That's incredibly specific and narrow, basically "English and German Folklore only, full stop, nothing else EVER," and I find that chafes rather hard on the kinds of creativity I want to explore.

If this above model were, say, one of half a dozen common patterns widely used, then it wouldn't be as much of an issue; you could shop around. But it isn't. If someone is engaging in heavy genre enforcement, you've got easily two to one odds that it's this exactly, or this but even more restrictive (e.g. throw in "humanocentric" or "heavily restricted magic" or the like.) I don't blame people for having preferences, but there's very clearly a lack of alternatives under the "I am enforcing strong genre limitations" umbrella. It's hard not to feel like creativity is restricted when it seems like 90% of people saying they want genre limitations do (almost literally) exactly the same things and reject exactly the same set of ideas.

I have never said you can't run a game that is more collaborative than D&D. Obviously you can. But there are still structures and rules for deciding what is allowed. They're just different from D&D's.

Alright.

 

[Oofta]

Which is why I get so confused when people insist rhat it MUST be the DM putting their foot down. I didn't do that. I didn't make some kind of hard final judgment. Had the example player pushed back, we would have kept talking until we worked it out. We always do work it out, and find something both I and the player consider acceptable. I have never, not once, had to tell one of my players "well that's just what it is, if you don't like it you aren't obligated to keep playing." Nothing even remotely like it. I budged, in the hypothetical, giving the player something I didn't think the rules as such permitted, because they explained how it made sense, another player backed them up, and they recognized that a lesser version of their initial proposal would still do what they truly wanted. I just don't understand how that can be parsed as the DM laying down the law and telling people what to do; at every point, the player was the one directing the show, I (at absolute most) simply gave gentle nudges.

But in the end you did make a decision on whether it was allowed, what the risk would be, what the chances were and so on. Obviously magic works differently in that game but it's not just the player declaring "I do X" and the GM passively saying "Okay".

People present D&D like it's a Hobbesian dictatorship: a place where you MUST have a single, absolute, unquestionable authority to keep the proles in check or everything will GUARANTEED descend into violent anarchy. That's why I push back so hard. I see it as being just as wrong about running games as Hobbes was about running states.

I think the GM in your game is still the absolute authority. You may always come to agreement through discussion, but part of that calculation on the side of the player has to be that you can say no, even if you rarely if ever do. The usage still has to be reasonable.

I don't think it's a requirement for creativity. I just think it's so massively helpful for creativity that refusing to do so is a bit like refusing to refrigerate food for preservation purposes. Sure, you don't need to...most food can be eaten quickly enough without a fridge and our ancestors lived with nothing but iceboxes or cellars, or even no chilling of food at all (e.g. salting, pickling, canning, candying, etc.) But when refrigeration is cheap, plentiful, and incredibly useful, why wouldn't you use it?


I find that creativity blooms everywhere when you take a highly collaborative approach, because collaboration adds prosocial rewards to being creative. Instead of it being a transgressive act, it becomes a socially affirming one: the creative player is strengthening the group, not exploiting it. This makes altruistic motives ("I want us all to have fun and succeed") point in the same direction as self-interested ones (whether they are outrightly selfish or more of the "enlightened self-interest" variety.) When self-interest and altruism can be aligned in this way, it is very worth doing, because then most people will feel motivated in similar directions despite not necessarily sharing the same reason for doing so. That is, they will work the same way even though they don't think the same way.

We all have different expectations and preferences. I would hate having to describe what my magic did like what you explained on a regular basis. Occasionally I want to do weird things with magic, but most of the time I just want to cast X.

Just because you don't like D&D, doesn't mean it's a bad system for everyone else.

I don't think they destroy creativity in the abstract, but I find that most people who actually enforce genre limitations (as opposed to actually persuading players that these limits are worthwhile) go too far. It isn't just (say) low fantasy: it's specifically a pseudo-medieval faux-European faux-Medieval schizotech "grim and gritty" Tolkienesque low fantasy where every game only offers the four oldest classes and (at best) the four oldest races(/species/whatever) and nothing else forever. That's incredibly specific and narrow, basically "English and German Folklore only, full stop, nothing else EVER," and I find that chafes rather hard on the kinds of creativity I want to explore.

If this above model were, say, one of half a dozen common patterns widely used, then it wouldn't be as much of an issue; you could shop around. But it isn't. If someone is engaging in heavy genre enforcement, you've got easily two to one odds that it's this exactly, or this but even more restrictive (e.g. throw in "humanocentric" or "heavily restricted magic" or the like.) I don't blame people for having preferences, but there's very clearly a lack of alternatives under the "I am enforcing strong genre limitations" umbrella. It's hard not to feel like creativity is restricted when it seems like 90% of people saying they want genre limitations do (almost literally) exactly the same things and reject exactly the same set of ideas.

If an artificer in my game were to say "I build a jet fighter" I would say "no". I don't think that's exactly incredibly specific and narrow. As far as other limitations ... as DM I have to make lore and a world that makes sense to me. If I'm playing a PC instead of DMing I don't want to think about that kind of stuff outside of my backstory, even then I want it to fit into the DM's world.

Alright.

A lot of this just comes down to preference. You may think a more abstract game is preferable because people have more flexibility. That's fine. I don't want to have to think in that way when I'm a player in a game. A lot of people have a hard enough time with the fairly concrete rules of D&D and would be lost in a game with too much flexibility. Fortunately there are options and we don't all have to play the same game or the same way.

 

[Oofta]

One more thought on this. I don't think flexibility and the creativity that it can allow is inherently good for a game. A lot of people I know, even otherwise intelligent people for whom I have a great deal of respect for would hate a game with too much flexibility. For some people, even the flexibility that D&D has is something they rarely use even when I gently remind or prompt. It's just not what some people find fun.

My wife is an amazing person and better than I at many things. But on the spot creativity? She'd likely freeze up and find it incredibly stressful. So don't make the assumption that more creative = better for everyone. For her? A spell system where you have to decide the effect and justify it? Much like taking tests (applying the knowledge is not a problem) it wouldn't be fun.

It's great that people like @EzekielRaiden can find games that scratch that itch for them, I think having a variety of TTRPGs is fantastic. But people play for different reasons and scratch different itches.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But in the end you did make a decision on whether it was allowed, what the risk would be, what the chances were and so on. Obviously magic works differently in that game but it's not just the player declaring "I do X" and the GM passively saying "Okay".

Whoever said it was? Legitimately. When did anyone ever say anything like that?

I think the GM in your game is still the absolute authority. You may always come to agreement through discussion, but part of that calculation on the side of the player has to be that you can say no, even if you rarely if ever do. The usage still has to be reasonable.

No definition of "absolute authority" I've ever heard makes sense in that context. That's like saying the Senate has absolute authority, they just choose to abide by the results of the states' elections for who gets to be in the body.

We all have different expectations and preferences. I would hate having to describe what my magic did like what you explained on a regular basis. Occasionally I want to do weird things with magic, but most of the time I just want to cast X.

Then you'd want to play a Wizard or Cleric, or playbooks like them (such as the Shaman playbook one of my players found), which have much more D&D-like spells. The Bard player chose to play Bard in part because of the improvisational nature of its magic. (Arcane Art lists several well-defined things you can seek; the player and I have developed further uses.)

Just because you don't like D&D, doesn't mean it's a bad system for everyone else.

See, here we have a major argument disguised as something else. You're asserting that this is what D&D fundamentally is--an absolute autocratic dictatorship of the DM. It isn't. That's one way it can be expressed, but it is NOT the only way. Telling me that I have to dislike D&D if I dislike the absolute autocratic dictatorship of the DM is circular reasoning, presuming the very thing in contention.

If an artificer in my game were to say "I build a jet fighter" I would say "no". I don't think that's exactly incredibly specific and narrow.

I would ask why they want to do that. Is it to achieve flight? There are several ways to achieve flight. Is it because they want to build a machine? There are other kinds of machine that would make more sense. Is it because they think jet engines are cool? I can understand that, but I don't really share their enthusiasm per se. Is it military power? There are other methods to achieving military power (which may include magical or, indeed, artifice-derived forms of aerial superiority.) I want to know what the goal of making this fighter jet is, because we can almost certainly make that happen.

I'm sure you can bring up innumerable other examples, but it's pretty clear you cherry-picked here. You know that the kind of thing I'm talking about is stuff like dragonborn (naturally, I'm a fan), monks, genies, feathered serpents, berbalangs, flintlock pistols, etc. Stuff that is perfectly reasonable for fantasy--even for medieval fantasy--but which doesn't have the gaming pedigree of dwarves or the roots in Tolkien or the myth and folklore of English, German, or Greco-Roman cultures.

As far as other limitations ... as DM I have to make lore and a world that makes sense to me. If I'm playing a PC instead of DMing I don't want to think about that kind of stuff outside of my backstory, even then I want it to fit into the DM's world.

And I'm saying it is always possible for both sides to adjust and adapt. That doing so encourages players both to be more amenable to compromise themselves (both because they will know that compromise is likely to get them some of what they want, and because they know the DM is meeting them partway and thus it behooves them to respond in kind), and to enthusiastically embrace the game and its themes. I beat on my "player enthusiasm" drum pretty hard, but I have yet to hear an argument for why it shouldn't be a top priority of every DM everywhere.

A lot of this just comes down to preference. You may think a more abstract game is preferable because people have more flexibility. That's fine. I don't want to have to think in that way when I'm a player in a game. A lot of people have a hard enough time with the fairly concrete rules of D&D and would be lost in a game with too much flexibility. Fortunately there are options and we don't all have to play the same game or the same way.

I...don't understand how it requires any "abstract" thinking. E.g. with Dungeon World--is a player closely studying a situation or person? That's Discern Realities (in D&D terms, "a Perception check.") Is a player attempting to take aim and shoot at an enemy at range? That's Volley. Is a player attempting to act despite imminent threat, or suffering a calamity? That's Defy Danger.

These things cover a broad swathe of situations, but they are rooted in clear, concrete actions. That's how DW moves work. There is no abstract thinking required; in the vast majority of cases, anyone merely paying attention to the situation will agree that the kind of action so described is occurring.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

t's great that people like @EzekielRaiden can find games that scratch that itch for them,

I can't. That's the problem. There are systems that do. There's an incredible dearth of people actually doing it. Hence my frustration with the aforementioned hegemonic nature of (what I understand to be) highly restrictive thematics and frustratingly uncooperative DMs.

 

[Oofta]

I can't. That's the problem. There are systems that do. There's an incredible dearth of people actually doing it. Hence my frustration with the aforementioned hegemonic nature of (what I understand to be) highly restrictive thematics and frustratingly uncooperative DMs.

You can't find players for the game you want to play. There's a difference. Perhaps the reason you can't find players is simply that many people don't share your preferences.

 

[pemerton]

I think the GM in your game is still the absolute authority.

I can't comment on @EzekielRaiden's game. But I can comment on Agon. In Agon, the player is the one who has ultimate authority over whether or not various sorts of player-side resources can be legitimately deployed (eg Divine Favour).

I have GMed multiple sessions of Agon, and this has not caused any problems.

In my 4e D&D game, the invoker/wizard had a feat that granted a +2 bonus to ritual checks. I believe the publishers intended it to apply only to rituals in the mechanical sense. My friend would apply the bonus whenever he took the view that what his PC was doing was a ritual. This did not cause any problems. It did lead to that player gradually building up a picture, in the setting, of how magic works. Which goes back to the topic of this thread - creativity.

 

[Oofta]

I can't comment on @EzekielRaiden's game. But I can comment on Agon. In Agon, the player is the one who has ultimate authority over whether or not various sorts of player-side resources can be legitimately deployed (eg Divine Favour).

I have GMed multiple sessions of Agon, and this has not caused any problems.

In my 4e D&D game, the invoker/wizard had a feat that granted a +2 bonus to ritual checks. I believe the publishers intended it to apply only to rituals in the mechanical sense. My friend would apply the bonus whenever he took the view that what his PC was doing was a ritual. This did not cause any problems. It did lead to that player gradually building up a picture, in the setting, of how magic works. Which goes back to the topic of this thread - creativity.

I understand that different games handle this in multiple ways, but I assume then that there are constraints enforced by the rules or some other mechanism? I mean, every game has some sort of shared rules and restrictions.

But the I think the important thing to me is that I don't believe more flexibility is inherently better. I don't have a problem with a DM making the final call and never have. Yes, some games give more options in the expression of character actions. Some games don't have a GM or give the GM less authority. That, IMHO, does not necessarily make them better games even if they do make them better for some people.

P.S. If I sounded dismissive of not being able to find other players, I apologize. I have some favorite board games that we can't find anyone for so I empathize.

 

[pemerton]

I understand that different games handle this in multiple ways, but I assume then that there are constraints enforced by the rules or some other mechanism? I mean, every game has some sort of shared rules and restrictions.

In Agon, Divine Favour is a limited resource, and so a player won't always spend in. For each action that is rolled for, the player decides whether and how a divine patron might be helping them - and then (if the god does help) the player spends the resource and narrates the help.

In 4e D&D, a feat bonus is not a limited resource in mechanical terms. But a bonus to rituals is constrained by the fiction: it only applies to a check made to perform a ritual. In the game I referred to, the player decided whether or not something was a ritual, and perhaps explain that decision it if it wasn't obvious. Most of the time it was.

My impression of @Lanefan's posts is that he (or the people he plays with) would try and assert that just about everything was a ritual, so as to get the +2 bonus, even if - in the fiction - it did not involve any weaving of magic. That did not happen in the case I'm describing. As I said, it was almost always obvious (from the fictional situation, and the player's declaration of his PC's action) whether or not a ritual was being performed.

I don't believe more flexibility is inherently better.

<snip>

some games give more options in the expression of character actions.

I don't think I've asserted anything is inherently better. I do think it is close to tautologous that, if you want players to play creatively, they need to have a lot of scope to engage the fiction with interesting action declarations for their PCs.

I'm not entirely sure it's a spectrum here, but it looks like it might be a bit like one. Maybe total freedom doesn't produce total creativity? But at the other end, say a choose-your-own-adventure certainly puts a hard limit on creativity!

Creativity may not be the only good thing in RPGing, of course. But it is the thread topic and so is what I've been focusing on in my posts.

 

[Celebrim]

I have never, not once, had to tell one of my players "well that's just what it is, if you don't like it you aren't obligated to keep playing." Nothing even remotely like it. I budged, in the hypothetical, giving the player something I didn't think the rules as such permitted, because they explained how it made sense, another player backed them up, and they recognized that a lesser version of their initial proposal would still do what they truly wanted.

Sure. But, you know as both a player and a GM, I can certainly imagine being a player in a game where if this happens more than once, I'll find a polite excuse never to come back to your game. Because I don't really want to be in a game where a functional way of playing it is arguing with and bullying the GM to get where you want, because that's just going to encourage players to engage with the GM and not with the game. And more over, it's highly likely that if you are giving the player something that they want, that me as another player at the table watching that exchange am going to feel that you are just giving spotlight to someone who is being a jerk at the expense of my enjoyment and my character's spotlight. And I don't want to compete in that metagame, so the more this actually happens, the more likely I am to just say "Oh well." and be gone. And I'm not going to tell you why, because I don't really want to be part of the drama and get in an argument with a player who has demonstrated his willingness repeatedly to just ride roughshod over other people.

So sure, you can trumpet how functional this sort of concession is, but that's really a matter of opinion. And while it is true that the rules need adjusting and a GM needs to make good and flexible rulings and try to say "Yes" as much as possible, there are just other times where for the good of the game they need to say "No." Some concessions are good. Some concessions are bad. And as a player I'm specifically empowering you the GM through the consent of the governed to make those calls, so that I'm not put in the highly uncomfortable possession of telling my peer and friend at the table to stop acting like a jerk and just play the game. And if I have a GM that doesn't realize that, I'm probably going to find a different GM.

And generally, in the majority of the games I'm in, we all understand that arguing with the GM is usually pretty much a jerky thing to do because even if a small percentage of the time the GM is wrong and doesn't realize it or admit it, this is still better than spending hours of collective time over the course of the campaign arguing about it and further everyone involved - having spent time as a GM themselves - knows how hard the job is and extends empathy to the GM.