D&D General Creativity?

[EzekielRaiden]

At a certain point, people are going to disagree. At that point, the person with the strongest personality may push others who don't want to make waves. Perhaps you take a vote to decide. But if there are multiple options, one person will likely suggest something that is not accepted, that's just kind of how it works. As a software developer I've always said that if you put 2 developers in a room they will likely come to 3 different conclusions on how to approach a problem. In a lot of cases, all 3 will be viable.

I don't really take a vote generally. This is usually what happens when some kind of disagreement occurs (using an invented example):

Spoiler: Example discussion

Bard: "I use my arcane duelist skills* to reflect the spell back at its source!"
GM (Me): "Hmm...your blade skills can do an awful lot, but that sounds like a pretty major power up. How are you intending to do that? Walk me through the process."
Bard: "Well...we know my blade was made by air genies, and air is all about redirecting. And it has the ability to call back the feather-bladed knives, right? I figure I'm manipulating that magic in a new direction, 'calling' the spell back to its source."
Spellslinger**: "Sounds legit to me."
Me: "Okay, so what's the most important part of this for you: not getting hit by the spell, or sending the spell back to its source?"
Bard: "Hmm. I'd like both, but if I had to pick one...probably sending it back."
Me: "Alright--I'm willing to consider that a sort of stunt you're performing, a blend of Arcane Art† and your new Duelist abilities, but it's going to take all your concentration to pull off, and if you fail the spell is going to really hurt. If you roll extraordinarily well, you'll learn something about this--the start of a brand-new Technique that no one else has. Is that worth the risk to you?"
Bard: (thinks for a long moment) "Y'know what? Screw it. Yeah, that's worth the risk. With an elaborate flick of my wrist, I bat the spell's energy away, carried on winds of magic back to its source."
Me: "Sounds like a plan. Roll that beautiful dice footage.††"
Bard: "Alright...(rolls) ...crap, that's a 7. Can't even boost that up with [the Battlemaster's] help."
Me: "You've got the right idea about how to deflect magic, but you're still new and this was incredibly spur of the moment. The magical wind from your sword has been hooked into the spell--you can send the spell back to its source, but it will take your sword with it; or you can keep your sword, and the total power of the spell will fall exclusively on you and no one else. Your choice.‡"
Bard: "Eugh, I don't like either of those...and I'm the healer..." [audibly agonizing] "...I let my sword go. It's the safer bet."
[Fight proceeds from there]

*A multiclass the Bard has picked up.
**Think artificer/gunslinger hybrid. A wizard with medieval pistols.
†The way DW Bards do magic; they don't have discrete spells, and instead get a move that defines what kinds of spell effects they can make.
††A joke, if one can even call it that, which I make frequently.
‡A partial success (roll total is 7-9) often works like this; this specific thing is inspired by the Defy Danger move: "On a 7-9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice." This is an ugly choice.

At no point was this a vote, per se. The player asked for something, I was skeptical; the player said what they wanted, and another player chimed in that it made sense to them. I gave it a fair hearing, and then asked what was really important to the player. They made a choice, and I took that and made something that sounded, to me, like a tempting offer for the part they really cared about. They took it, rolled the dice, and then had to deal with the consequences of the offer, good and bad.

This characterizes the vast majority of formal "gameplay" (as in, triggering rules) discussions for our game. The majority of discussions-in-general are usually one of us being a huge nerd, or someone asking a question about the situation or setting and us working through finding the answer. Again, this is a completely invented example, none of this has actually happened, but it certainly could happen now that the Bard has developed magical fencing skills.

In genuinely every case, for over four and a half (pushing five) years of mostly-weekly play, we've resolved every single disagreement like this. Other than out of laughter or shock (or for RP purposes), nobody even raises their voices. The player lays out what they want, I give it a fair hearing and make an offer (or just accept, because sometimes I have zero problems with what they want!) If I make an offer, they either accept it and we move forward, or they make a counter-offer/tweak/request. I can't think of a time when the player's counter-offer wasn't generally acceptable. The longest such a conversation might run is ten minutes, and that would be an extremely involved multi-step negotiation. Usually it's over within a minute or two.

We do this all the time. I've never once had any issues that resulted in an impasse. I don't see any reason why I would suddenly run into one now after nearly five years of play.

It's fine if you make it work for you. But don't pretend there will never be conflict or a difference of opinion. Heck, in our D&D game today we couldn't even decide what direction to go and ended up going 3 ways.

It's not a matter of pretending. I've genuinely never had the kinds of conflict you describe. Even in games where I've been a player, the only conflicts that have come close to what you describe are rare and, as far as I can remember, always the result of miscommunication, misunderstanding, or one specific player being malicious.

But I also don't really see what all of this has to do with creativity. D&D sets out different parameters, different ways of resolving conflicting ideas than some other games. By default the DM makes the final call. I prefer that, even when I'm playing and the DM makes a decision I don't care for because when I'm playing I just want to inhabit my character. I don't want to think about world building, I just want to focus on what my character would think, feel or do in the moment given what their options are. There's still plenty of creativity in what my character does, even if we stick pretty close to RAW.

Alright. I'm willing to drop the subject as well.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Can't speak for anyone else but "Disney Chainsaw Massacre" sounds pretty good from here.

Probably not my cup of tea, but I can see where it would have its appeal. I suppose that's kind of the aesthetic of Cuphead, now that I think about it...

 

[Imaculata]

Rule of cool. I always ask my players to narrate what their spell looks like. And when my players ask me if they can do something with the spell that isn't listed in the rules, I tend to lean towards yes. Magic should be fantastical, and I encourage creativity in my players.

The same goes for any other action really. Sure you can surf down those stairs on your shield! Just make a roll for it.

 

[pemerton]

The whole it takes a perfect group to have any sort of collaborative play experience work take is just not true. What it takes is just a group of broadly compatible people who are willing to sometimes have tough conversations, but like not like much tougher than deciding between burgers or Chinese food.

I have pretty much been utilizing some degree of ongoing collaborative setting design since I started running games in around 2002. Roughly ~20 years or so. Sometimes there have been conflicts or incompatibilities at the table, but for the most part it works if you are willing to put in the work collectively.

If that's what counts as a collaborative play experience - letting the players make up stuff about PC backstory, build out details of the setting, then I think I've been doing it even longer than you! (I believe I do have the advantage of age.)

I haven't read every post in this thread, but I mean, seriously, is that what we're being told can't work - like the player of the Dwarven Outcast deciding he comes from a Forgotten Temple Complex and deciding the temples are to a god of explosives and explosions? And making up details about his enemy, his mentor etc?

Utterly bizarre.

 

[pemerton]

In D&D - or pretty much any other RPG - there are three major differences with the above models:

1. There isn't a hard rule for everything, and nor can there (realistically) ever be.

See, this is where I got off the bus. Because this claim is false. Eg in Apocalypse World, when is it ever not clear who gets to say what happens next, and what the parameters for that are?

What about Agon? Torchbearer? Marvel Heroic RP?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

See, this is where I got off the bus. Because this claim is false. Eg in Apocalypse World, when is it ever not clear who gets to say what happens next, and what the parameters for that are?

What about Agon? Torchbearer? Marvel Heroic RP?

I suspect the problem is, what Lanefan means is "There isn't a discrete rule for all possible individual situations." Metaphorically, "There isn't (and realistically could never be) a separate rule for everything, and everything with its own separate rule." Which is true, but also largely irrelevant, because well-designed games don't bother with having discrete and totally specific rules for every individual situation. Sadly, the claim does get trotted out quite a bit to dismiss the possibility of comprehensive rules, even though the solution is almost trivial (namely, rule frameworks which cover broad swathes of situations rather than discrete individual ones, but you already know this.)

 

[pemerton]

@EzekielRaiden I understand what you're saying, but it does not persuade me to relent. @Lanefan's post rests on an assumption about how RPG rules work which may have been current c 1978 but has been superseded in the intervening 45 years.

In AW, if a player does it they do it, and the dice are rolled. Otherwise, once they say what they're doing and look to the GM to see what happens next, the GM makes a move - a soft move, unless an opportunity is handed on a platter.

If a GM thinks that a particular sort of situation, or place, or NPC, should trigger a dice-determined range of outcomes, rather than just invoke a soft move, the GM needs to write a custom move for it/them. This is the AW equivalent of writing up a stat block for a high stakes trap or NPC/creature in D&D. In this way, the game generates mechanical heft at those points that carry the thematic weight of play.

But the lack of a custom move doesn't mean there is no resolution system. There is - it's called the GM makes a soft move.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

None.
Picking up a brick and use it as weapon is fine.

 

[Oofta]

Can't speak for anyone else but "Disney Chainsaw Massacre" sounds pretty good from here.

Well, Winnie the Pooh became public domain and we already have him starring in a horror movie Blood and Honey. Mickey Mouse goes public domain next January, so wait a year and all your dreams may come true.

 

[Oofta]

I don't really take a vote generally. This is usually what happens when some kind of disagreement occurs (using an invented example):

Spoiler: Example discussion

Bard: "I use my arcane duelist skills* to reflect the spell back at its source!"
GM (Me): "Hmm...your blade skills can do an awful lot, but that sounds like a pretty major power up. How are you intending to do that? Walk me through the process."
Bard: "Well...we know my blade was made by air genies, and air is all about redirecting. And it has the ability to call back the feather-bladed knives, right? I figure I'm manipulating that magic in a new direction, 'calling' the spell back to its source."
Spellslinger**: "Sounds legit to me."
Me: "Okay, so what's the most important part of this for you: not getting hit by the spell, or sending the spell back to its source?"
Bard: "Hmm. I'd like both, but if I had to pick one...probably sending it back."
Me: "Alright--I'm willing to consider that a sort of stunt you're performing, a blend of Arcane Art† and your new Duelist abilities, but it's going to take all your concentration to pull off, and if you fail the spell is going to really hurt. If you roll extraordinarily well, you'll learn something about this--the start of a brand-new Technique that no one else has. Is that worth the risk to you?"
Bard: (thinks for a long moment) "Y'know what? Screw it. Yeah, that's worth the risk. With an elaborate flick of my wrist, I bat the spell's energy away, carried on winds of magic back to its source."
Me: "Sounds like a plan. Roll that beautiful dice footage.††"
Bard: "Alright...(rolls) ...crap, that's a 7. Can't even boost that up with [the Battlemaster's] help."
Me: "You've got the right idea about how to deflect magic, but you're still new and this was incredibly spur of the moment. The magical wind from your sword has been hooked into the spell--you can send the spell back to its source, but it will take your sword with it; or you can keep your sword, and the total power of the spell will fall exclusively on you and no one else. Your choice.‡"
Bard: "Eugh, I don't like either of those...and I'm the healer..." [audibly agonizing] "...I let my sword go. It's the safer bet."
[Fight proceeds from there]

*A multiclass the Bard has picked up.
**Think artificer/gunslinger hybrid. A wizard with medieval pistols.
†The way DW Bards do magic; they don't have discrete spells, and instead get a move that defines what kinds of spell effects they can make.
††A joke, if one can even call it that, which I make frequently.
‡A partial success (roll total is 7-9) often works like this; this specific thing is inspired by the Defy Danger move: "On a 7-9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice." This is an ugly choice.

At no point was this a vote, per se. The player asked for something, I was skeptical; the player said what they wanted, and another player chimed in that it made sense to them. I gave it a fair hearing, and then asked what was really important to the player. They made a choice, and I took that and made something that sounded, to me, like a tempting offer for the part they really cared about. They took it, rolled the dice, and then had to deal with the consequences of the offer, good and bad.

This characterizes the vast majority of formal "gameplay" (as in, triggering rules) discussions for our game. The majority of discussions-in-general are usually one of us being a huge nerd, or someone asking a question about the situation or setting and us working through finding the answer. Again, this is a completely invented example, none of this has actually happened, but it certainly could happen now that the Bard has developed magical fencing skills.

In genuinely every case, for over four and a half (pushing five) years of mostly-weekly play, we've resolved every single disagreement like this. Other than out of laughter or shock (or for RP purposes), nobody even raises their voices. The player lays out what they want, I give it a fair hearing and make an offer (or just accept, because sometimes I have zero problems with what they want!) If I make an offer, they either accept it and we move forward, or they make a counter-offer/tweak/request. I can't think of a time when the player's counter-offer wasn't generally acceptable. The longest such a conversation might run is ten minutes, and that would be an extremely involved multi-step negotiation. Usually it's over within a minute or two.

We do this all the time. I've never once had any issues that resulted in an impasse. I don't see any reason why I would suddenly run into one now after nearly five years of play.


It's not a matter of pretending. I've genuinely never had the kinds of conflict you describe. Even in games where I've been a player, the only conflicts that have come close to what you describe are rare and, as far as I can remember, always the result of miscommunication, misunderstanding, or one specific player being malicious.


Alright. I'm willing to drop the subject as well.

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.

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

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.