D&D General Creativity?

[Celebrim]

I'm disagreeing because you are painting it as though either (a) every request is such, or (b) it is impossible for any DM to successfully identify and oppose such requests. That all groups inevitably fall into it, and once they do they are tainted forever.

No, I'm not. All I'm saying is that there isn't a meaningful compromise that can always be reached even by the most functional of tables. At some point the GM has to say "No." Beyond that I'm saying that "The Rule of Cool" is a very bad rule, and is much like "Wheaton's Law" in that it actually tells you nothing, since the aphorisms are predicated on something very subjective.

If you set clear and meaningful expectations at the start, and truly listen for what your players actually want, not just the thing they initially requested, you can essentially always find a way to make their true desire happen.

No, you can't. That is ultimately the core thing I disagree on is you keep asserting this sort of blanket statement. It's not even remotely possible to do this always. Indeed, it's probably not possible to do this in the majority of cases it comes up. Because usually what these players actually want is to "win". I usually hear what they actually want rather quickly, and it's something like, "I want a get out of jail free card I can play at any time." Quite often, it's not even that that is the core problem, but rather what they want is, "I want to do cooler and bigger things than my companions at the table, because my aesthetics of play are a dysfunctional combination of Fantasy and Competition where I think the point of the game is impress my fellow players with how cool I am and I'm not patient enough to wait my turn for that or try to obtain my Shining Moment of Awesome fairly."

Look, I had a new player say to me, "What I want is to play a character that rides a dinosaur that shoots lasers from its eyeballs" and I didn't say "No" to that. I just said, "Well, that's something you'll have to work toward, but here is how you get started on that..." I'm the guy who runs a setting with innumerable gods just so players that want to play Clerics can make up their own deity if they want. I've written at EnWorld on how to flexibly handle requests for various stunts. It's perfectly possible to be flexible about some things and empower some desires. But those sorts of things in my experience aren't usually the source of friction at the table.

To hold someone accountable for wrongs done and yet also absolutely refuse to tell them how they have done wrong is pretty bad in my eyes. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's pretty bad.

So let me get this straight. You think gracefully bowing out of something is more rude than confronting someone and telling them "how they have done wrong"? This isn't a marriage we are trying to repair here. This is a consensual social gaming interaction where I am just one participant of several. Why the heck should I impose my standard of play on someone? Why should I try to make them feel bad? Going back to the situation with the one really horrible player at the table at a recent gaming convention, what good do you think would have come of me challenging his behavior? Do you think that would have defused the situation?

I mean, it is deliberate in the sense that I could not (and still struggle to) conceive of a reading of what you said, given the context of the example I gave, that did not come across as you saying, "if I [Celebrim] was present for those events, I would resent the Bard, and would specifically resent them because they got a chance to do a cool thing, and I did not."

It's utterly bizarre that you think I want that as a player. You don't understand. It's not that you gave him a sweet, delicious cookie and I didn't get one. It's you collectively laid a stinking turd.

I thought I explained to you that I don't want to catch a break like that in combat. I don't want to be put into a situation where me arguing with you in the way you outlined in your example is how I go about solving problems and overcoming challenges. I can hardly think of anything less fun than earning "easy mode" based on dysfunctional processes of play like GM wheedling. It wouldn't be the Bard that made me leave that table. It would be the GM. Like I said, it's cool when a player can pull off an amazing stunt without stretching the rules to do so through actual creativity or outstanding luck or great role-play or whatever. It's utterly ridiculous when that stunt is just coercing the GM into giving them what they want because the GM has no backbone to say "No". I can do plenty of cool things in the game without cheating, which is what it feels like when you propose a new magical ability for yourself and then argue the GM into it. Like I told you, it's like activating cheat codes in PvE. I've got this little 8-year-old nephew that plays Minecraft by continually entering cheat codes. He is extremely quick at entering in cheats to give himself things or teleport or whatever. He doesn't play creative to build things. He wants to play survival, but he wants to cheat to feel powerful. I don't envy his ability to do that. I consider it missing the entire point. It's not that I'm envious of the player. On the contrary, my feeling toward them would probably turn to pity and disdain because they felt they had to do something like that in order to be "cool", and it actually feels just like the maturity level of my 8 year old nephew entering in cheat codes instead of trying to get good at the game. And really it was just cringey and lame, the more so because it came about by wheedling the GM. I'm sorry, but that's not the sort of gaming environment I want to be in.

I have no idea why you think I should be impressed with that or want that. You really think I'm sitting over here going, "Gee, I wish my GM would be FLEXIBLE like that." Really??

Your fluid switching between argument as a nasty and unpleasant thing (e.g. the guy at that convention game) and as just a person giving justifications for assertions makes it incredibly difficult to actually respond to this

You are the one that is doing the switching. You are the one that got focused on whether the debate was heated or nasty or not. I'm the one saying that it doesn't matter whether the argument is nasty heated and unpleasant or not. The debate itself is the problem. Your Bard player shouldn't be asking to do something that is neither something which generically anyone could attempt to do (the "Kindergartener Rule") nor a special power or ability of the class in the first place. And they certainly shouldn't be rejecting your initial assessment that that is a significant power up. It's one thing to attempt a stunt like jump on a Chandelier and swing across the room and drop kick a target. It's quite another thing to just make up magical powers. The debate itself is offensive, even if it isn't nasty or argumentative. It's more offensive when it emotionally charged, but it's always offensive in this context.

Player: Can my player attempt to parry a spell like a Jedi parrying a blaster with a lightsaber?
DM: Not without some special ability that explicitly allows that.
Player: Even with my magic sword?
DM: Yes, even with your magic wind sword made by genies.

Anything the player says after that point to debate is a problem regardless of how it is said.

This makes your opposition appear to arise no matter what: whether the "argument" is legitimate or illegitimate...

Yes, exactly. The process of play isn't wheedling the GM. Creativity arises from making use of limited resources, not wishing up whatever tool you need at that moment. Yes, of course you could solve the problem if you had a genie handing out wishes. But that's rather the opposite of creativity.

it is simply the fact that they made any petition at all.

There is nothing wrong with the petition. Petitioning the GM is not the same as arguing with the GM. I'll even generally allow players to make one appeal as it could be the case that the GM has forgotten some rules or something about the fictional positioning or something about the player's abilities. It's the part after you've realized that the GM is in full understanding of the facts and has considered them and has not agreed with you, where you think you now can argue him into seeing things your way where I think it goes wrong.

Hence, you seem envious because they got to do something cool.

LOL. OK, have it your way.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There is nothing wrong with the petition. Petitioning the GM is not the same as arguing with the GM.

This is what I described. A petition, not an argument. A discussion followed that (hypothetical) petition. The discussion was brief (a few spoken sentences each.) I literally do not understand how you can see it as anything else.

The process of play isn't wheedling the GM.

I do not understand how you see that in what I said. At all. Not even the slightest bit. And this is exactly what I'm talking about. You make a distinction between "petitioning" and "arguing," and then reject that there could ever be a distinction, and then say that no the distinction does matter, and then say it doesn't. I'm incredibly confused because it seems to be this bizarre quantum world where it is and isn't a distinction that matters!

I thought I explained to you that I don't want to catch a break like that in combat.

...what? I literally have no idea what you're talking about. Where did the player "catch a break"? I am absolutely, totally, completely baffled here. What?

 

[bloodtide]

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."

I don't see how this is possible: it would happen in every game I run IF I let it happen, but my house rules prevent it. At least half the players in the world will bend the rules or out right cheat, unless they are stopped by a firm authority.

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.

A lot of players need structure.

It's this I have a problem with. Because while it's wonderful that you guys are so healthy that you can hold discussions that are never arguments, in my experience there are quite often discussions that occur where no side has a compromise they feel comfortable with and at that point the discussion is continuing until one side concedes. And however charming and friendly that discussion may seem, that's an argument and which side concedes comes down to which side can bully the other. In my experience, it's just best to avoid that altogether by a table agreement to respect the GM's authority.

I agree. In fact one of my big house rules is no "discussions or arguments" during the game. Don't "like" something or think something is "wrong" or want to make a "point" about something: you MUST do it outside the game. I will not waste even a minute of game with such a thing. If it is so important to you, bring it up any other time except game time. Even if "something happens" in the game, I will alter reality to make it "right" IF you somehow make your case. Amazing few players ever do this, and never the problematic ones.

Maybe if you spent more time at conventions, or if you had spent more time running games for strangers, or if your high school group had more autism spectrum nerd boys from the wrong side of the tracks, then it might alter your opinion. Or not. But I have a hard time fitting it into my experience.

Very true. It seems a lot of people get locked into the small social circle of playing RPG with only their Best Friends. While at least half my games are with strangers or people I very much dislike to say the least. My 5E Spelljammer game is a mutual hate each other game....but it does not matter: they show up, we game, they go home. By agreement we don't mention the real world at all. They also were a group that famously hated my house rules...but now after playing for six months they find them not so bad.

No, I think that's a reasonable reading. It might not be the most charitable reading, but I'll play by your terms. But I note that your statement here leaves out a big part of the issue and is indeed silent on it in a way that is well-poisoning. It is not that one of my allies got to do something cool that provoked resentment. The thing that provokes the resentment is why they got to do something cool. If my ally does something cool as a matter of skill on their part, or as a matter of engaging with the rules in the sense that clearly they were allowed by the rules to do the thing, or because they rolled a natural 20 and the rules clearly reward that as special, then that's a whooping high five moment we all enjoy in. But if my ally got to do "something cool" because he spent time arguing with the GM until he got his way to some degree or the other, that's just not cool and it's detracting from the enjoyment of everyone at the table but themselves and I do feel resentment about that at times.

Agree here, and do see this in a lot of games. The basic set up is the players goof around, then the characters get in trouble in the game. It will be a TPK. Then fast talking rule breaking player will say something, and the DM looking to avoid the TPK will let it work. But then the other players feel cheated as the whole game was just changed out from under them. It's even worse when it's just one player saving their character every time they get in a jam.

I've frequently gamed with players who struggle with tactics or problem solving or role playing or whatever who instead of trying to get better at playing the game, resort to cheating or browbeating the GM.

I game a lot with such people too. I do offer, outside the game, to help players. And the right players will even take my help. We take an hour, and I explain things to them, give them handouts, give them cards, and otherwise help them out. I make some amazing players.

The other players don't just want the 'rule of cool', they want the Cinematic Rules. Watch nearly any fiction, the heroes just auto win with no effort: that is what some players expect. There character falls for an obvious trap, but then they demand an easy button way out.

I am literally telling you, the player just needs to say what they want to do. If there is even a shred of reasonableness in that desire, I will do everything I can to find it and make it happen. I want all of my players to be happy, to be excited to come to a session. To feel that their ideas, whatever they might be, I will hear, examine, and support as much as humanly possible, even if I'm skeptical and need some give and take.

It sounds like your game has no rules and you just let the players alter reality at will. The player says something: you make it happen. I want all my players to be happy and excited for the next game......and they are, as they do show up.

Session 0 is where you do this sort of thing. You lay out the boundaries of what is reasonable and confirm that all parties involved accept those boundaries. I listened to what requirements my players had for me, too. They were pretty minimal, more in the realm of adding new things to the mix than hard no-no lines, but one was to keep any truly X-rated/sexual stuff to a minimum and off screen (ironically, from the party Bard!) I had (and continue to have) zero problems abiding by that. I made a couple of promises, including my promise that I would always give a fair hearing to any idea presented in good faith, and do my utmost to bring as much of it to life as I could. I also promised never to swindle them out of anything; characters I portray absolutely will lie to the party, but I as the GM never will. I may not specify absolutely every detail in advance (mostly because I often don't know in advance!), but I will never intentionally speak falsely, and if I do so unintentionally I will correct that error.

Sounds close to my mind set. Except my game is "unrated beyond R", and if you don't want that, my game is not for you. And I don't lie as a DM, or person, in general...but don't believe anything in the game.

Compared to actually telling the GM what actions drove you to leave, and why those actions were such a serious breach. Obviously that conversation is not appropriate to have mid-session if this is something so heinous to you that you would feel the need to immediately flee the table. Leaving and saying absolutely nothing about why, on the other hand? Yeah, I consider that pretty rude. To hold someone accountable for wrongs done and yet also absolutely refuse to tell them how they have done wrong is pretty bad in my eyes. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's pretty bad.

I on the other hand will gladly hold the door open for a player to leave. It's a common thing in my games. There was a time in my mall gaming days they even formed a club of Runaways with badges and such....oh, the good old days.

No, you can't. That is ultimately the core thing I disagree on is you keep asserting this sort of blanket statement. It's not even remotely possible to do this always. Indeed, it's probably not possible to do this in the majority of cases it comes up. Because usually what these players actually want is to "win". I usually hear what they actually want rather quickly, and it's something like, "I want a get out of jail free card I can play at any time." Quite often, it's not even that that is the core problem, but rather what they want is, "I want to do cooler and bigger things than my companions at the table, because my aesthetics of play are a dysfunctional combination of Fantasy and Competition where I think the point of the game is impress my fellow players with how cool I am and I'm not patient enough to wait my turn for that or try to obtain my Shining Moment of Awesome fairly."

I agree. SO this. So many players are this type of jerk. They want to show off in front of an audience and ruin a game for everyone.

I thought I explained to you that I don't want to catch a break like that in combat. I don't want to be put into a situation where me arguing with you in the way you outlined in your example is how I go about solving problems and overcoming challenges. I can hardly think of anything less fun than earning "easy mode" based on dysfunctional processes of play like GM wheedling. It wouldn't be the Bard that made me leave that table. It would be the GM. Like I said, it's cool when a player can pull off an amazing stunt without stretching the rules to do so through actual creativity or outstanding luck or great role-play or whatever. It's utterly ridiculous when that stunt is just coercing the GM into giving them what they want because the GM has no backbone to say "No". I can do plenty of cool things in the game without cheating, which is what it feels like when you propose a new magical ability for yourself and then argue the GM into it. Like I told you, it's like activating cheat codes in PvE. I've got this little 8-year-old nephew that plays Minecraft by continually entering cheat codes. He is extremely quick at entering in cheats to give himself things or teleport or whatever. He doesn't play creative to build things. He wants to play survival, but he wants to cheat to feel powerful. I don't envy his ability to do that. I consider it missing the entire point. It's not that I'm envious of the player. On the contrary, my feeling toward them would probably turn to pity and disdain because they felt they had to do something like that in order to be "cool", and it actually feels just like the maturity level of my 8 year old nephew entering in cheat codes instead of trying to get good at the game. And really it was just cringey and lame, the more so because it came about by wheedling the GM. I'm sorry, but that's not the sort of gaming environment I want to be in.

Agree +1.

Player: Can my player attempt to parry a spell like a Jedi parrying a blaster with a lightsaber?
DM: Not without some special ability that explicitly allows that.
Player: Even with my magic sword?
DM: Yes, even with your magic wind sword made by genies.

Anything the player says after that point to debate is a problem regardless of how it is said.

This +1.

 

[pemerton]

I’ve not yet played Agon, but I have a copy and want to give it a try at some point.

I've only GMed single digit sessions. But the constraint there is time and competing systems (I'm really into Torchbearer at the moment, in case I hadn't mentioned that 100 times yet). I heartily recommend it to you and anyone else reading along.

I agree that looking at Divine Favor as a metacurrency is flawed; such a view separates the fiction and the game, yet there is no reason to do so.

Right.

It does involve the players establishing fiction about people - that is, the gods - who are not their PCs. But I don't see the base structure as wildly different from a player having their D&D cleric cast a spell.

Players can also have Bonds with gods: when you call on a bond you get to add the other characters Name die to your pool, and gods have a d12 name die (the biggest possible). So this is Ares turning up and fighting alongside you - ie kinda cool.

The game doesn't suffer in any way for the fact that the GM doesn't get to veto this stuff.

 

[Campbell]

Here's my mental for how play fundamentally works:

Establish/Author Relevant Details -> Frame the Situation/Scene/Move/Whatever -> Complete the play loop to resolve the unit of play. -> (repeat)

Basically, we have a unit of play that is meant to resolve whatever is in question. It might be a session or two (most trad games), it might be a scene (Sorcerer), it might be a singular player decision (Apocalypse World). My view is that generally inside the play loop we don't want to establish/author new things that will reconceptualize the situation in question, at least not without extreme care. The reason to be disciplined about this is to maintain the integrity of the play space. It applies just as much to GMs as players. Authoring new details in the midst of a play loop can be destructive play no matter who is doing it no matter who benefits. Skewing things to make it worse for your character is just as much of a problem as skewing them to make it better.

Outside of the play loop however there's no real danger in establishing whatever we want to establish. Scenarios/scenes/whatever can always be framed to make what has been established compelling and/or challenging. At this level it's mostly by what aesthetically works for the playgroup.

 

[pemerton]

@Campbell

It's an interesting model that supports a plausible conjecture (ie inside the play loop we don't want to establish/author new things that will reconceptualize the situation in question, at least not without extreme care).

As is the way with we academic lawyer/philosopher types, my first thought was of the following problem case:

The system being played is ostensibly "trad", so within your model its play loop is a session or two. The action involves the PCs entering an urban building stealthily. And a player asks "Is there a box/crate/piece of abandoned furniture/etc nearby that I can use to get up high and peer through the window?"

I don't think AD&D has a principled way of answering that question. Rolemaster doesn't; nor does Spacemaster. I don't think RuneQuest does. I'm not sure about HERO or GURPS but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't.

Classic Traveller doesn't have one as written, though my view is that it actually handles it more easily than the above systems, because it can be approached in the same way as Apocalypse World would handle it without any loss of play integrity.

I think there are multiple lessons that could be taken away from this problem case. One of them is that at least some "trad" systems present themselves as being robust across a wider range of fictional situations than they actually have the capacity to support.

 

[Celebrim]

My view is that generally inside the play loop we don't want to establish/author new things that will reconceptualize the situation in question, at least not without extreme care. The reason to be disciplined about this is to maintain the integrity of the play space. It applies just as much to GMs as players. Authoring new details in the midst of a play loop can be destructive play no matter who is doing it no matter who benefits. Skewing things to make it worse for your character is just as much of a problem as skewing them to make it better.

I agree with this is as a fundamental principle for almost every play style and aesthetic of play I can think of. It's OK if the secret keeper knows something about the situation that would reconceptualize it, provided he establishes that secret prior to beginning the play loop so that he can be both consistent and unbiased. And it's OK for any participant to play inside the gray areas of the space to add details that aren't previously established provided they don't reconceptualize the situation. However, if the person doing this isn't the secret keeper, then you have to generally allow the secret keeper the opportunity to affirm or deny this addition to the fictional space, to avoid creating contradictions.

I'm really skeptical of play styles that allow any participant to reconceptualize a scene once it has started, even if they are the GM. "You kill the guards easily, but really, the cloaks the guards are wearing have actually been monsters all along!" is to me just really lazy and bad GMing, as it basically feels like a GM throwing a temper tantrum that the particular scene wasn't as challenging as he wanted it to be. It would be way too easy to dominate the whole story and not share it with the other participants or to let your own personal feelings guide all of play if you did this. GMs with authorial power in the narrative really in my opinion need to be disciplined about, as you put it, "maintaining the integrity of the play space".

In fiction there are often scenes where a character learns of their new powers and then deus ex machina uses those new powers to solve whatever problem is at hand - "You were the Chosen One all along." sort of thing. But you really have to be careful with that. In general, that needs to be telegraphed in some way before it is satisfying as a story. (A relevant good example is in "Child of the Stargazer" in the Dungeon's and Dragon's cartoon.)

 

[Manbearcat]

@Campbell

It's an interesting model that supports a plausible conjecture (ie inside the play loop we don't want to establish/author new things that will reconceptualize the situation in question, at least not without extreme care).

As is the way with we academic lawyer/philosopher types, my first thought was of the following problem case:

The system being played is ostensibly "trad", so within your model it's play loop is a session or two. The action involves the PCs entering an urban building stealthily. And a player asks "Is there a box/crate/piece of abandoned furniture/etc nearby that I can use to get up high and peer through the window?"

I don't think AD&D has a principled way of answering that question. Rolemaster doesn't; nor does Spacemaster. I don't think RuneQuest does. I'm not sure about HERO or GURPS but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't.

Classic Traveller doesn't have one as written, though my view is that it actually handles it more easily than the above systems, because it can be approached in the same way as Apocalypse World would handle it without any loss of play integrity.

I think there are multiple lessons that could be taken away from this problem case. One of them is that at least some "trad" systems present themselves as being robust across a wider range of fictional situations than they actually have the capacity to support.

I agree with @Campbell ’s post so long as the proviso “with extreme care” is (a) system-sensitive (as various systems will handle this more or less deftly; meaning maintain the structural and/or competitive integrity of play and keep social contract & reasonable handling time online) and (b) we start with the acknowledgement of “in Trad D&D, merely selecting Wizard as your class gives you a resource suite that lets you progressively reconceptualize situations (unless the GM initiates blocks via Force and a, uniquely obnoxious for all participants, Spellcaster Rock/Paper/Scissors game that obliterates any concept of competitive integrity before it even gets off the ground)!

 

[pemerton]

I agree with @Campbell ’s post so long as the proviso “with extreme care” is (a) system-sensitive (as various systems will handle this more or less deftly; meaning maintain the structural and/or competitive integrity of play and keep social contract & reasonable handling time online) and (b) we start with the acknowledgement of “in Trad D&D, merely selecting Wizard as your class gives you a resource suite that lets you progressively reconceptualize situations (unless the GM initiates blocks via Force and a, uniquely obnoxious for all participants, Spellcaster Rock/Paper/Scissors game that obliterates any concept of competitive integrity before it even gets off the ground)!

Just to be clear: are you positing that choosing a base class that has been in every edition of the game - the D&D magic-user/wizard - counts as violating the core principle that @Campbell set out and that you agree with and that I described as plausible?

(For completeness - I think we're setting 4e D&D to one side here - it's not "trad D&D".)

If you are, I think that counts as a significant degree of agreement with my suggestion that some "trad" systems present themselves as being robust across a wider range of fictional situations than they actually have the capacity to support.

 

[Celebrim]

I agree with @Campbell ’s post so long as the proviso “with extreme care” is (a) system-sensitive (as various systems will handle this more or less deftly; meaning maintain the structural and/or competitive integrity of play and keep social contract & reasonable handling time online) and

Agree with this part.

(b) we start with the acknowledgement of “in Trad D&D, merely selecting Wizard as your class gives you a resource suite that lets you progressively reconceptualize situations (unless the GM initiates blocks via Force and a, uniquely obnoxious for all participants, Spellcaster Rock/Paper/Scissors game that obliterates any concept of competitive integrity before it even gets off the ground)!

Disagree with this part. Aside from Wish, which often carries a large cost to cast, nothing in the Wizard toolbox really opens up the possibility of reconceptualizing the scene. All of D&D's spells are very specific blocks of narrative force that generally do one thing and one thing only. (The spell says, "In a scene, you can assert the following is true.") While this eventually gives you a Swiss army spell book of problem-solving tools for almost every occasion, it doesn't let you reconceptualize scenes. You can use a wall of stone to bridge a chasm, but the chasm is still there, and the wall of stone has limitations on size, durability, and so forth. Experienced GMs know what capabilities that spellcasters bring to the table and prepare for it. This is one reason why you have to be very careful of affirming in D&D any sort of flexibility over what a spell can do and make sure that the spell is specifically limited to just what it says that it does and nothing else. Within the context of the narrative force provided by the spell there are already lots of creative solutions that can be applied without allowing that spell to be altered in its effect free form.

And in very Trad D&D, wizards in exchange for their awesome power are as squishy as heck and tend to not survive without an adequate meat shield.

I'm not really on board with the whole spellcaster angst thing. My only experience with Trad D&D wizards being super broken is in optimization threads where people showed how they could be broken, but my house rules had largely preemptively dealt with that problem and combined with my 1e AD&D background and initial skepticism of where 3e relaxed some restrictions on how spells worked, I never really had a problem with spellcasters taking over at any level of play I regularly engaged in.

But if we really want to have a "Wizards are Bad" thread we should fork into a separate thread.

UPDATE: Though this line of thought just revealed to me a really strong argument against "flexibility".