D&D General Creativity?

[Oofta]

No, we have a FUNDAMENTALLY different understanding of what this is about. Who cares if 'Monk' decides to do a 'Flash Move'? As long as it has genre appropriateness, and the player is following the process of play, then its fine! (I mean, it may not be possible for it to happen in the fiction of a given game, obviously). What does the player accomplish, they 'beat' some situation? There's just going to be another situation, and presumably it also will be challenging to them, even with this new move. It just doesn't matter. As long as the fiction addresses what is interesting to the participants (agenda) then its all FINE! Yes, it is fine for the players to want to play low level D&D PCs and follow a set of rules that makes goblins dangerous in challenging, but to think that is NECESSARY is simply too limited a view of RPGs.

Except it's not genre appropriate, nor is it even rules-adjacent for a monk to create a Flash tornado.

I mean, in comics Superman is an interesting character, despite being virtually invincible, because it isn't simplistically about what he can defeat (yeah, sometimes the writers cheaped out and invented 'kryptonite' or whatever, but that's not a requirement to make a Superman story). RPGs are the same, no matter how much stuff my Dungeon World character accomplishes (because I said he would and then rolled a 10+) there's always the next GM hard move, and it DEFINITIONALLY puts him right back in the frying pan!

Sure. If I were playing a high power supers game. Superman has effectively godlike powers, but I'm not playing a supers game.

This is also essentially my answer to @Lanefan, there simply is no such thing as a hard RPG game design/play principle that there must be any specific constraints on player action declarations or outcomes. The only constraint is that the player is somehow sharing the decisions on those outcomes with some other participants and/or processes which allow the conflict inherent in drama to emerge, happen, and come to resolution. And given all that, there's no reason to think, and my experience bears this out in general, that players are any less capable of deciding how the tone/genre of the game goes.

Yet some people will push the boundaries far beyond the established parameters.

Try this, run a D&D campaign and put the players completely in charge of how much XP everyone gets, and all agree beforehand that the players are entirely free to use this to play in whatever they all feel is the level sweet spot for the style of play they feel like having. If they all want to play 15th and up level PCs, so what? They can just grant themselves a lot of XP and get to 15th level and have fun, they're adults (probably) and can decide for themselves, they don't need daddy GM telling them they have to flog it hard through 14 levels to 'deserve' to play how they want! lol.

I run campaigns up to 20th level (I did 30th in 4E). It's not a problem with PC power level. It's people trying to make an end-run around the rules in order to achieve or gain something that is outside of the shared genre concept. This can be small "I had brunch with Odin" in a campaign where the gods are distant and unreachable and it's been clearly established that travelling to most other planes (especially Valhalla) is nigh impossible for most planes and Plane Shift is unavailable. It can be bigger as in someone who wanted all the abilities of a dragon and those of a vampire without paying any penalties when everyone else is running a standard character. It's doing things that isn't even close to the agreed upon nature of the game or what the characters should be able to do.

Put it this way. Let's say you're playing checkers. Someone decides to replace their tokens with chess pieces and use chess moves. If people want to play checkers, that's uncool. Want to play chess? Cool. Go ahead and play chess. Want to play a supers game? Awesome, write up a speedster. If you want to play a gonzo, anything goes game, awesome. Go for it. I'm not interested, but that shouldn't stop anyone. When I play D&D I want to play in the realm of D&D. There will always be things the rules don't cover, things the DM just has to rule on the spot which is a lot of the fun.

But those rulings? That on-the-spot creativity? It still needs to fit the style, theme and shared expectations of the game and the group.

 

[Oofta]

...

Ah, but did they? Or did they cast a counterspell that looked like earthen grasp?

I gotta say, counterspell is one of those spells that I grudgingly accept but it's one the most boring spells in the game. If someone described their counterspell to a floating hand to be an earthen grasp it would be awesome.

 

[delericho]

I gotta say, counterspell is one of those spells that I grudgingly accept...

Likewise. Though there's a big part of me thinks that it shouldn't be a spell at all, and that the game would be better off if some alternative mechanism was found for handling it.

Ideally, I think it wants to be something all casters can at least try, but needs also to be changed so that it isn't a really easy way to effectively shut down the one DM-controlled caster in the encounter. (And I find the 'fix' in MotM, whereby most of those 'casters' now have a not-quite-spellcasting trait, to be rather feeble.) But I guess all that is another topic.

 

[Oofta]

Likewise. Though there's a big part of me thinks that it shouldn't be a spell at all, and that the game would be better off if some alternative mechanism was found for handling it.

Ideally, I think it wants to be something all casters can at least try, but needs also to be changed so that it isn't a really easy way to effectively shut down the one DM-controlled caster in the encounter. (And I find the 'fix' in MotM, whereby most of those 'casters' now have a not-quite-spellcasting trait, to be rather feeble.) But I guess all that is another topic.

I played in a game with multiple casters to high levels and after a certain point the DM just stopped using enemy wizards because we had 3 PCs that could counterspell. So bad guy wizard would cast a spell, PC 1 would counterspell, bad guy wizard would counterspell the counterspell and then PC 2 would counter that counterspell. If there was a bad guy wizard 2, we'd go to PC 3.

But you're right, it's a separate topic. Wizard battles should be cool and evocative, a fantastic battle of opponents not just a "Nah, you don't get to do anything this turn."

 

[pemerton]

The sort of scene-framing model presented by the MHRP quote above literally asks the players (in the bolded bit) to cede some agency in order to allow scenes to be framed.

As in the past you've been a fairly consistent and strident advocate for player agency, it seems a bit off-script that you'd be promoting a system that has denial of agency as a suggestion. What am I missing?

Further, you've also been an even more strident opponent of anything even resembling a railroad, yet forcing the PCs to start a scene unconscious (or captured, a la the start of module A4) is about as railroady as it gets*; as would be any scene that begins in medias res without any player input as to how things got to that point or any chance for the players to plan ahead. For example, in the X-men scene above, Cyclops and the rest would doubtless have known ahead of time they were entering into negotiations and thus would (one thinks) have wanted to come up with a negotiation strategy in advance and talk it over (which means the players coming up with the strategy and talking it over in character), along with some fallback plans if the negotiations go sideways. And yet the system asks the GM to dump them into the already-ongoing scene.

So again, what am I missing here?

@Neonchameleon has a sensible reply to this.

I have never been averse to interesting scene framing. This thread even named a technique after me! - D&D 4E - Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e

Your comments about Cyclops and friends also show that you're not very familiar with Marvel Heroic RP. There is no requirement in that game that players "come up with a strategy and talk it over in character" - the relationship between the characters is handled via the Affiliation die (Solo, Buddy, Team), and a player can make up an action all on their own while rolling the Team die (provided their character is acting as part of a team) or can get as much advice as they want from their friends while rolling the Solo die (provided their character is not acting as part of a team). Preparation and fallback plans are handled via the creation of Resources by spending a "plot point" to activate an Opportunity (typically a 1 on a die) rolled by the GM.

If the GM is framing boring, or undesired, scenes, the problem there is not "railroading". Is that the scenes are boring and/or undesired.

 

[Oofta]

Apparently. To repeat: D&D rulebooks have always been oddly coy about the authority of the GM to frame scenes, in various circumstances.
...

Then let me rephrase. First, I disagree. I think it's pretty clear. On the other hand, I don't think it matters. This is something that a DM should discuss with their players about what the boundaries are. Personally? I never really tell people what they're thinking or feeling but if you watch Critical Role, Matt does it on a fairly regular basis and the group is fine with it.

Just because you feel that the game doesn't address it with the specificity of other games does not mean that it's a flaw or an issue. If I was going to start a campaign with everyone in prison, I would let them know so they could come up with a backstory and ideally how they were captured. If an enemy wants to capture a PC, I'll figure out what resources the enemy has and we can either run it as an encounter if the outcome is uncertain or I'll just let the PC know that the forces are overwhelming and we'll narrate what happens.

But it's all up to the group how they want to handle these kind of things, we don't need explicit spelled out rules one way or another, we just need to discuss the social contract as a group and decide what works best.

 

[pemerton]

Then let me rephrase. First, I disagree. I think it's pretty clear. On the other hand, I don't think it matters. This is something that a DM should discuss with their players about what the boundaries are. Personally? I never really tell people what they're thinking or feeling but if you watch Critical Role, Matt does it on a fairly regular basis and the group is fine with it.

Just because you feel that the game doesn't address it with the specificity of other games does not mean that it's a flaw or an issue.

Just to be clear, you're saying that it's not coy, but even if it was it wouldn't matter?

But it's all up to the group how they want to handle these kind of things, we don't need explicit spelled out rules one way or another, we just need to discuss the social contract as a group and decide what works best.

Why do you use any rules at all then? I mean, anything can be punted back to the "social contract" if we like, can't it?

Framing scenes is one of the most fundamental moves in a roleplaying game. I think a good RPG rulebook will say something about how it is supposed to be done, and what the parameters are that apply to it.

Of course anyone can depart from any rule blah blah blah - no RPG rulebook exercises power in a literal sense over its readers. But good ones provide rules and guidance which are known to reliably produce desired play experiences. Analogously to rules for other games, to recipe books for cooking, to instruction manuals for vacuum cleaners, etc.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Neonchameleon has a sensible reply to this.

I have never been averse to interesting scene framing. This thread even named a technique after me! - D&D 4E - Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e

Your comments about Cyclops and friends also show that you're not very familiar with Marvel Heroic RP. There is no requirement in that game that players "come up with a strategy and talk it over in character" - the relationship between the characters is handled via the Affiliation die (Solo, Buddy, Team), and a player can make up an action all on their own while rolling the Team die (provided their character is acting as part of a team) or can get as much advice as they want from their friends while rolling the Solo die (provided their character is not acting as part of a team). Preparation and fallback plans are handled via the creation of Resources by spending a "plot point" to activate an Opportunity (typically a 1 on a die) rolled by the GM.

If the GM is framing boring, or undesired, scenes, the problem there is not "railroading". Is that the scenes are boring and/or undesired.

This post and @Neonchameleon ’s post covers pretty much everything, but I’ll add the following:

* Serial exploration of serial temporal continuity (in terms of tracking game engine artifacts like Turns et al) of map & key isn’t the only way to “skin the maximal agency cat.” Further, if you (a) aren’t tracking each of these components with scrutiny and integrity for (b) both Team PC and setting components (particularly threats), then, what you’re doing isn’t creating actual agency with respect to the gamestate…you’re creating merely the veneer of it.

* Scene-framed games, or games that elide moments of time and space, have different imperatives and prerogatives and procedures from Sim-games (or Sim-veneer games) with respect to maximal agency. You don’t achieve maximal agency by serial anything except (a) serial accounting for engine and principle specific inputs and outputs of play. That + (b) the table-facing conversation around prior scene outputs (gamestate and accumulated fiction) flowing to the framing of follow-on conflicts is how you achieve maximal agency in these games.

 

[Oofta]

Just to be clear, you're saying that it's not coy, but even if it was it wouldn't matter?

I'm saying that a major premise of D&D, especially 5E is rulings over rules. That flexibility is an asset, not a flaw.

Why do you use any rules at all then? I mean, anything can be punted back to the "social contract" if we like, can't it?

Most games have some level of house rules. That doesn't mean I want to write a game from scratch.

Framing scenes is one of the most fundamental moves in a roleplaying game. I think a good RPG rulebook will say something about how it is supposed to be done, and what the parameters are that apply to it.

Of course anyone can depart from any rule blah blah blah - no RPG rulebook exercises power in a literal sense over its readers. But good ones provide rules and guidance which are known to reliably produce desired play experiences. Analogously to rules for other games, to recipe books for cooking, to instruction manuals for vacuum cleaners, etc.

I just don't see an issue. Could the DMG be improved and include more examples? Sure. But it does talk about it, just not perhaps in the language or specificity you seem to want. In addition it's rarely, if ever, been a point of contention in a game.

 

[Lanefan]

One of the fundamental observations of trying to design GMless games is (and I can't remember who I'm quoting) that it's generally a bad idea to have the same player responsible for both getting a character into trouble and of getting them out of it.

Agreed it's a bad idea - it's called something like the Czege principle if memory serves, though I've no idea who or what Czege was.

That said, as we're talking D&D here we're clearly not talking about DM-less games, which are a different breed of animal. And it seems MHRP also has a GM.

As for player agency there's a stunning amount of difference between slapping a player's control of their character out of their hands during play so the DM is puppeting their character and doing it out of scene where it might jar slightly but at the point it can most be taken.

A difference in scale, perhaps, but it still biols down to the same thing: loss of player control over one's character.

Second there's a bright line in D&D. The DM completely controls literally the entire world other than the PCs. The only thing the players control is their characters. For a DM, not content with controlling the entire world other than the PCs to reach across the line and snatch the only thing the player actually has control of, therefore leaving the player with literally nothing is ridiculously unfair.

By contrast the line in MHRP is much blurrier. The players don't have as much control over the gameworld as Watchtower but they've a non-trivial amount; because MHRP doesn't have entitled DMs who are precious about their stuff and their exclusive control the players are also much more likely to share. And with certain characters it's entirely reasonable for them to be in a scene even if they aren't actually in a scene. (I've done this with Tony Stark. I mean yeah, sure, he was captured and wasn't actually there in person when the other characters were attacked. But he'd made preparations against other plans that were revealed as the scene unfolded). But even if the line is blurrier scene framing is part of the Watcher's control so it's both expected they use it as part of what people signed up for in a way it isn't part of D&D

Third there's the way death is on the line in D&D - and there's really no other long term failure state. And the XP track ticks upwards. Which locks the players into almost having to succeed. None of this is true for MHRP (I can't even remember if you can kill a character RAW).

In a supers game I can see that - a key element of the genre is that they're well-nigh indestructible. Even there, however, characters die in the MCU (movies) and not all of them come back.

Fourth there's how equipment-dependent most D&D PCs, especially the "classic" classes (i.e. not sorcerer, warlock, or monk) are. It's not so bad in 5e - but take an AD&D or 3.5 fighter's equipment away and force them to fight wearing just a loincloth and they are stuffed. And take a wizard's spellbook away and they don't even have the hit point buffer. Meanwhile the Hulk fights in just a ripped pair of purple shorts, Thor isn't the God of Hammers, and even Tony Stark is more than just his armour. And a captured Black Widow is probably exactly where she wants to be.

So, largely intrinsic abilities rather than abilities granted by equipment; and the origin story of each of them usually includes how those intrinsics came to be e.g. Spiderman, Black Widow, the Hulk, etc.

Fifth there are genre expectations. A comic book starting in media res? It's not quite as common as a heist appearing to go wrong but there's hidden information, but close. Meanwhile I think one Conan adventure starts in a dungeon. It exists - but is much less of a thing. And player skill and detailed preparation are much more of a thing.

I can't speak to comic books as it's been probably 40 years since I read one.

And whether or not player skill is a big deal, detailed preparation is. I mean, even in the MCU (movies) the heroes spend time planning and preparing, even if half the time it all goes sideways three minutes in.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Agreed it's a bad idea - it's called something like the Czege principle if memory serves, though I've no idea who or what Czege was.

Paul Czege wrote a few indie RPGs, most notably My Life With Master which was the RPG that was so controversial that a group of reactionaries on RPG.net jumped up and down and shouted it couldn't be an RPG. Which is how we end up with the term Storygames. For what it's worth the original use of the term is nothing to do with player actions or GM authority; it's that the storygame isn't at least theoretically open ended and can't go on theoretically forever.

In MLWM everyone plays the minions of an evil overlord or Master (played by the GM) who keeps pushing them around and bullying them in part ensuring they can't escape until one snaps. Then there's a showdown between the minion that snapped and the master - and after that it's game over. What is the master and their minions? The igors of a mad scientist? Blowfeldt's goons? The kids of the old woman who lived in a shoe? Kylo Ren's stormtrooper bodyguard? Imps summoned by a demonologist? Any of the above or more. What causes the snap? Different every single game but it will happen. Very light and tightly written and worth playing two or three times - but it falls off fast after that.

A difference in scale, perhaps, but it still biols down to the same thing: loss of player control over one's character.

And a papercut and a limb amputation boil down to being cuts. There are huge differences between the two.

In a supers game I can see that - a key element of the genre is that they're well-nigh indestructible. Even there, however, characters die in the MCU (movies) and not all of them come back.

Just because there's no mechanical way to force a death doesn't mean there's never a heroic sacrifice Different genres have a different relationship to death.

And whether or not player skill is a big deal, detailed preparation is. I mean, even in the MCU (movies) the heroes spend time planning and preparing, even if half the time it all goes sideways three minutes in.

Planning, yes. Detailed, no. And how much (if any) they do depends a lot on who they are. The Avengers tend to do more than the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Iron Man does more than Thor. And even the planners tend to cook their plans very rare.

 

[Lanefan]

Paul Czege wrote a few indie RPGs, most notably My Life With Master which was the RPG that was so controversial that a group of reactionaries on RPG.net jumped up and down and shouted it couldn't be an RPG. Which is how we end up with the term Storygames. For what it's worth the original use of the term is nothing to do with player actions or GM authority; it's that the storygame isn't at least theoretically open ended and can't go on theoretically forever.

In MLWM everyone plays the minions of an evil overlord or Master (played by the GM) who keeps pushing them around and bullying them in part ensuring they can't escape until one snaps. Then there's a showdown between the minion that snapped and the master - and after that it's game over. What is the master and their minions? The igors of a mad scientist? Blowfeldt's goons? The kids of the old woman who lived in a shoe? Kylo Ren's stormtrooper bodyguard? Imps summoned by a demonologist? Any of the above or more. What causes the snap? Different every single game but it will happen. Very light and tightly written and worth playing two or three times - but it falls off fast after that.

Gotcha. Thanks.

And a papercut and a limb amputation boil down to being cuts. There are huge differences between the two.

And one very big similarity, that being that if given a choice most people would prefer to avoid the occurrence of either.

Just because there's no mechanical way to force a death doesn't mean there's never a heroic sacrifice Different genres have a different relationship to death.

Indeed, though I found the MCU's (in-movie) willingness to kill off some characters a refreshing change from the supers-are-indestructible conceit that otherwise largely underpins the genre.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Gotcha. Thanks.

And one very big similarity, that being that if given a choice most people would prefer to avoid the occurrence of either.

Fair enough. But I'll regularly risk papercuts. I almost never risk having my arm amputated.

Indeed, though I found the MCU's (in-movie) willingness to kill off some characters a refreshing change from the supers-are-indestructible conceit that otherwise largely underpins the genre.

You mentioned you hadn't read a comic in about 40 years. It shows Supers not dying changed almost forty years ago in 1986; that was the year both Watchmen and Crisis on Infinite Earths came out. The former was its own continuity of superheroes and was a bloody and violent tale the Comics Code Authority did not approve - but was also really good and is I think the best selling graphic novel of all time, and in the second as the climax to DC's mega-crossover they killed Supergirl. Yes that Supergirl. And she stayed dead until 2004.

Twenty years ago it used to be said that "No one in comics stays dead except Bucky, Uncle Ben, and Jason Todd". Bucky of course being the Winter Soldier who came back in the comics in 2005. Batman readers voted for the then Robin Jason Todd's death in 1988 - and he came back in 2006. And Jean Grey's died often enough that they make jokes about it in canon.

 

[bloodtide]

"Calvinball" is a fictional game from the comic Calvin and Hobbes, though the term is usually used in a looser sense than what was used in the comic itself. Formally, Calvinball is a "sport" where the rules are made up by the players as they play; it's explicitly intentional that no two games of Calvinball will be the same. However, TVTropes uses the term in a broader sense: games where any "rules" are fluid, ever-changing, and (usually) never explicitly spelled out anywhere. This is the sense I intend: a game where the only rule is "DM says" is a game where the rules (other than "DM says") are fluid, ever-changing, and never explicitly spelled out anywhere. There is nothing to rely on, no decisions to make (other than "will this be what the DM says?"), and no strategy to learn (other than learning to read the DM's mind.)

Well, even if you are locked into "using the rules" D&D is still "DM says", so what is the point.

And if a player might think they are targeted by "DM Says", then they are they type of player I don't want in my game: so it all works out.

So, you are more intelligent, self-aware, and understanding than your players? I assume this isn't what you meant, but it is what your reply means in the context of the question I asked.

Eh, I think the important part is the DM does not have a character in the game and the DM is the only one that (should) care about the both the game and all the players.

And yet the style you are explicitly advancing is one that requires a group that all thinks the same and is agreeable. That's literally the argument I'm making here: unless the whole group is of one mind, and thus no mind-reading is required (because everyone consistently agrees on what should happen), things necessarily devolve toward nothing more than "DM says." How do you prevent that slide? What do your players have that they can make use of, rely upon, or reason from which isn't just another way of saying "DM says"?

Well, I see what your talking about here.

Except my style, the players are not overly agreeing to anything set. They are agreeing to "let the DM run a fun game" with little or no details

When I talk about other games, I'm addressing the things like "anyone in the other game can just alter reality at will", often this is PART of the game rules...but it does not have to be as it's often a social agreement. And when a player can alter reality, all players must be on the same agreeable page. Like:

Example 1: The characters get caught in a trap with foes closing in. Player C just randomly says "Oh we find a secret escape tunnel and get away!" All the players high five and say "great game" and that happens. It ONLY works are all the players have agreed to massive harsh limits on "they can do anything" to make the game work. Everyone must always agree to make this game work.

Example 2: The characters get caught in a trap with foes closing in. Player Z randomly says "My character shoots out ten 100d100 lightning bolts!" And THAT is what happens when you don't have a group of toned down players. Players will do wacky all powerful, and most often only for their character and their ego. And THAT is why D&D does not let players alter reality and had DMs there to stop such shenanigans.

 

[damiller]

I am running a Super Hero 5e game at the moment and outside of combat I have them use their abilities like Fate Aspects. If they can convince me that Power "x" could do that, I generally allow it with a power roll. Even in combat I will often say "yes" to this kind of thing.

 

[Neonchameleon]

When I talk about other games, I'm addressing the things like "anyone in the other game can just alter reality at will", often this is PART of the game rules...but it does not have to be as it's often a social agreement. And when a player can alter reality, all players must be on the same agreeable page. Like:

Example 1: The characters get caught in a trap with foes closing in. Player C just randomly says "Oh we find a secret escape tunnel and get away!" All the players high five and say "great game" and that happens. It ONLY works are all the players have agreed to massive harsh limits on "they can do anything" to make the game work. Everyone must always agree to make this game work.

Example 2: The characters get caught in a trap with foes closing in. Player Z randomly says "My character shoots out ten 100d100 lightning bolts!" And THAT is what happens when you don't have a group of toned down players. Players will do wacky all powerful, and most often only for their character and their ego. And THAT is why D&D does not let players alter reality and had DMs there to stop such shenanigans.

Out of curiosity which tabletop games are you talking about that let the player do this? Because none come to mind. I mean both those are outside the realms of both Fate and Mage: the Ascension. Are we talking Toon here with Bugs literally painting the secret escape tunnel onto the wall?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The sort of scene-framing model presented by the MHRP quote above literally asks the players (in the bolded bit) to cede some agency in order to allow scenes to be framed.

As in the past you've been a fairly consistent and strident advocate for player agency, it seems a bit off-script that you'd be promoting a system that has denial of agency as a suggestion. What am I missing?

Further, you've also been an even more strident opponent of anything even resembling a railroad, yet forcing the PCs to start a scene unconscious (or captured, a la the start of module A4) is about as railroady as it gets*; as would be any scene that begins in medias res without any player input as to how things got to that point or any chance for the players to plan ahead. For example, in the X-men scene above, Cyclops and the rest would doubtless have known ahead of time they were entering into negotiations and thus would (one thinks) have wanted to come up with a negotiation strategy in advance and talk it over (which means the players coming up with the strategy and talking it over in character), along with some fallback plans if the negotiations go sideways. And yet the system asks the GM to dump them into the already-ongoing scene.

So again, what am I missing here?

* - this has always been my biggest complaint about the A-series, that it insists the whole party get captured at the end of A3 rather than allowing for the very real possibility that one or more characters might have a valid "getaway car" e.g. a device of teleportation or etherealness or whatever that allows a guaranteed avoidance of capture.

I've always disagreed entirely with this position. For example, suppose that your MHRP character is confronted with a choice, by a villain, to either surrender or have his fiance murdered. Is that out of bounds railroading? Is it such if no fiance was ever mentioned by the player and thus 'love for significant other' wasn't put on the table by the player? What if it was? What if it was even a key part of the PCs backstory explaining how they became a super?

See, I don't think if you give me this element of your character story that it is at all out of bounds for me to say "OK, well, Dr Badd captured Karen and forced you to surrender to him in order to free her. You're now chained to a gurney in his laboratory!" Sure, its a pretty strong setup, but clearly there's going to be action and drama here, you aren't just going to be dissected, roll up a new guy you sucker! No, you're going to escape, or learn something, or whatever. You, the player, opened up this door when you created your character, and from an overall mechanical standpoint, this starting point is NOT DISADVANTAGEOUS, the 'doom pool' is no different from if you were safe in your lair. Its not a 'railroad' at all, its just a starting off point for the action that gets things moving.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Eh, I think the important part is the DM does not have a character in the game and the DM is the only one that (should) care about the both the game and all the players.

And I can't believe I missed this on the way through. I absolutely and completely could not disagree more. Every single player at the table should care about the game and all the players. And the best players I have played with are the best precisely because they do care about everyone at the table. And both the players and the characters.

This in a step on up game means that they are better at teamwork. And in an emotion driven game it means they are caring about and supporting the other character for far better and more interesting scenes.

If you don't care about either the game or the other players then what are you doing there?

 

[Lanefan]

I've always disagreed entirely with this position. For example, suppose that your MHRP character is confronted with a choice, by a villain, to either surrender or have his fiance murdered. Is that out of bounds railroading? Is it such if no fiance was ever mentioned by the player and thus 'love for significant other' wasn't put on the table by the player? What if it was? What if it was even a key part of the PCs backstory explaining how they became a super?

See, I don't think if you give me this element of your character story that it is at all out of bounds for me to say "OK, well, Dr Badd captured Karen and forced you to surrender to him in order to free her. You're now chained to a gurney in his laboratory!"

That set-up is way out of bounds:

I've had no chance to determine for myself whether he in fact has Karen or is merely bluffing (e.g. by going to her house and seeing if she's there)
--- if bluffing, I've had no chance to call that bluff and see what he does
I've had no chance to determine or learn whether Karen is still alive or whether he's already killed her (or whether she's escaped on her own)
I've had no chance to roleplay through any negotiations and-or my actual surrender
I've had no chance to attempt to escape before or during the tie-me-to-the-gurney process

Nope, sorry, not gonna fly.

Sure, its a pretty strong setup, but clearly there's going to be action and drama here, you aren't just going to be dissected, roll up a new guy you sucker! No, you're going to escape, or learn something, or whatever. You, the player, opened up this door when you created your character, and from an overall mechanical standpoint, this starting point is NOT DISADVANTAGEOUS, the 'doom pool' is no different from if you were safe in your lair. Its not a 'railroad' at all, its just a starting off point for the action that gets things moving.

That the mechanics say I'm not in a disadvantageous position while the fiction clearly says I am is a disconnect in itself.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Except it's not genre appropriate, nor is it even rules-adjacent for a monk to create a Flash tornado.

Is it? What genre are we talking about here? I mean, there's a LOT of variability within D&D. Certainly the genre of stories that the Monk class is drawn from (Chinese Gong-Fu tales) contain stuff like that! A 4e Monk turning into a tornado? I can definitely see that! A 3.5 one? Yeah, no doubt there's some sort of crazy item or multi-class shenanigan or something that will let you have that outright as a thing. So, no, I don't think its outright genre-breaking in D&D at all! Beyond that, yeah, maybe at low levels it violates expectations of what sorts of 'powers' are in play, but I did say there could be reasons why it might not be possible. Just not ones associated with "this is too powerful."

Sure. If I were playing a high power supers game. Superman has effectively godlike powers, but I'm not playing a supers game.

Dude, would you like a gander at the character sheet of "Questioner of All Things", a sixteenth level AD&D wizard who can TRIVIALLY do "godlike things" for breakfast? Last I checked AD&D is definitely D&D!

Yet some people will push the boundaries far beyond the established parameters.

Who established the parameters? I mean, sure, its possible to have a player in a game who insists on trying to go far outside the conventions of that specific game and doesn't take the hint in terms of what kind of tone/genre is being established by the table (and presumably corresponds with one that the game supports). But this is just like saying that D&D is a bad game because you could have a DM who is arbitrary, capricious, and bullies the players. Anything is possible, and no game will entirely withstand enough malfeasance in play (or simple ineptitude perhaps).

I run campaigns up to 20th level (I did 30th in 4E). It's not a problem with PC power level. It's people trying to make an end-run around the rules in order to achieve or gain something that is outside of the shared genre concept. This can be small "I had brunch with Odin" in a campaign where the gods are distant and unreachable and it's been clearly established that travelling to most other planes (especially Valhalla) is nigh impossible for most planes and Plane Shift is unavailable. It can be bigger as in someone who wanted all the abilities of a dragon and those of a vampire without paying any penalties when everyone else is running a standard character. It's doing things that isn't even close to the agreed upon nature of the game or what the characters should be able to do.

Right, but again see above if you think that somehow makes a given type of game not EVER WORK. They work fine. Players decide how things work all the time. I do it every Wednesday (usually) in our BitD game, along with @Campbell, @kenada, @niklinna, and @Manbearcat. I mean, I literally just say, pretty often, "Takeo is doing X, Y, and Z, and such and such is coming down." Now, a lot of it will trigger some sort of mechanics, a Long Term Project, Acquire an Asset, Information Gathering, a full up Score, or maybe just some fiction being established. Since the thread is primarily about D&D, I am not going to fight with you about the EXPECTATIONS of how fiction and characters work in D&D. Sure, its not usual in most games for the players to just declare things. There isn't really a set of mechanics which handle that, and there's normally an expectation that there's some GM designed content that is supposed to be the focus.

That being said, a LOT of our high level AD&D play looked a heck of a lot like BitD! We would all just start shooting the naughty word on a Saturday afternoon sitting out at the table on my back porch and dream up something. I remember once we all decided that we wanted to find some anti-magic, and that evolved into a famous dungeon that Mike invented on the spot (mostly to screw us, lol) called "Mountain of the Beholders", not just a few beholders, THOUSANDS of the suckers! Needless to say we never were able to get what we were after, even with 5 super high level wizards. We did kill a vast number of beholders though! haha.

Put it this way. Let's say you're playing checkers. Someone decides to replace their tokens with chess pieces and use chess moves. If people want to play checkers, that's uncool. Want to play chess? Cool. Go ahead and play chess. Want to play a supers game? Awesome, write up a speedster. If you want to play a gonzo, anything goes game, awesome. Go for it. I'm not interested, but that shouldn't stop anyone. When I play D&D I want to play in the realm of D&D. There will always be things the rules don't cover, things the DM just has to rule on the spot which is a lot of the fun.

But those rulings? That on-the-spot creativity? It still needs to fit the style, theme and shared expectations of the game and the group.

Nobody is saying its cool to wreck a game. What I'm saying is, there's no such principle in RPGs as "the players cannot be in charge, they'll just wreck the game." Yet I hear some variation of that constantly in these sorts of threads.