Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6312721" data-attributes="member: 17106">Well, that's probably true.That just seems completely untenable. It assumes both that some kind of prefabricated content exists that would allow a game to move forward without making stuff up, and that the players stay within the scope of that content. Where is this coming from? A published adventure in a published setting? Or someone who creates that much of their own content whole cloth? That's a niche within a niche either way. Maybe it's possible to run a game that way, but I wouldn't want to try.To suggest that a referee should not interfere with the game assumes that there is a game that exists independently of that referee. For D&amp;D I look at it precisely the opposite way. The game is the DM.Seems to me that there are ways in which this could be true, and a whole bunch of ways in which it can be false.That presumes that it was being taken away specifically because the player didn't deserve it, and more broadly that there is even such a thing as deserving or not deserving and that this is relevant. Again, that's a very idiosyncratic way of looking at things. What if there's just a thief NPC who wants to do some thieving? What if the theft is some kind of quest/challenge/plot hook independently of whether or not the player ought to have the item?I would think that even a fairly dispassionate referee would need to lie to the players in occasional circumstances where NPCs are lying to the players, or when various types of supernatural deception are at play (illusions, mostly).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ahnehnois, post: 6312721, member: 17106"] Well, that's probably true. That just seems completely untenable. It assumes both that some kind of prefabricated content exists that would allow a game to move forward without making stuff up, and that the players stay within the scope of that content. Where is this coming from? A published adventure in a published setting? Or someone who creates that much of their own content whole cloth? That's a niche within a niche either way. Maybe it's possible to run a game that way, but I wouldn't want to try. To suggest that a referee should not interfere with the game assumes that there is a game that exists independently of that referee. For D&D I look at it precisely the opposite way. The game is the DM. Seems to me that there are ways in which this could be true, and a whole bunch of ways in which it can be false. That presumes that it was being taken away specifically because the player didn't deserve it, and more broadly that there is even such a thing as deserving or not deserving and that this is relevant. Again, that's a very idiosyncratic way of looking at things. What if there's just a thief NPC who wants to do some thieving? What if the theft is some kind of quest/challenge/plot hook independently of whether or not the player ought to have the item? I would think that even a fairly dispassionate referee would need to lie to the players in occasional circumstances where NPCs are lying to the players, or when various types of supernatural deception are at play (illusions, mostly). [/QUOTE]

Verification