Chaosmancer
Legend
No, this is not what you did. You took a specific statement of mine and just straight up said that I was wrong about my own experience. Very different.
The thing is that I am very open about my experiences because it avoids bad faith arguments and prevents people making generalisations and using ridiculous examples that never happen in real life (like a DM using weighted dice). Why don't you try it, basing your examples and demonstrations on actual examples ?
Sigh
Look, you want to be offended because I didn't remember every detail you've told me about your life over the last 3 weeks, I can't stop you. I'm not wasting more time telling you I didn't call you a liar if you refuse to believe me.
And for you, if it's only "miscommunication and mismatched expectations", where do the horror stories come from ?
It isn't "only" that. I was responding to you randomly bringing up people being called stupid, which no one did.
And again, you are mistaken. My reason for quitting that game was because what they expected in terms of playstyle did not match what I expect in terms of fun. They wanted an extremely technical game that was only about fighting, I did not. Nothing wrong about their style, it's just not what I like to play.
Which is exactly what I just said, so how am I wrong, if you just parrot what I said back at me? Seriously, is someone hacking my posts and rewriting them?
Which you did, here is the sentence: "In fact, I think @Lyxen is about the only person I've seen on these forums who has seemed to not have had expeirenced a truly bad DM. And that is probably wrong, they probably have."
Please explain to me how this is not calling me a liar.
See above.
... Because "That is probably wrong" was me talking about my observation, not your statements. Something I would have been glad to clarify if you hadn't jumped boot first down my throat with your indignation.
So, please explain, as I add in the clarity, how this is calling you a liar? "In fact, I think Lyxen is about the only person I've seen on these forums who has seemed to not have had expeirenced a truly bad DM. And that [observation and recollection of what I believe he said about his 4 decades of experience] is probably wrong, they probably have [because statistically it is more likely, and I may be misremembering]."
Yes, of course, railroading is a capital offense, right. Anyone doing it in their game is a really bad DM, who should be banned from DMing and should be put on a list to be monitored so that players can avoid playing with him ever again.
Factually, a lot of published adventures contain a fair bit of railroading, some more than others, but I've also head players complain about areas which feel too much like a sandbox. It's again just a question of playstyle (and, by the way, when designing our LARPs, we ask each player what he expects to find, a more guided adventure or a more sandboxy one). It's just a question of preference so yes, complaining about railroading and calling a DM "a truly bad DM" because of that is very probably truly bad in itself.
No, complaining about railroading isn't entitlement. Calling someone a Bad DM for railroading by removing player agency isn't bad in and of itself. You don't get to call players whiners and then obfuscate that by making ridiculous hyperbolic claims.
Note that you acknowledge asking players if they want something "more guided" or "more sandboxy". This acknowledges the need to communicate with your players and get their consent. Instead, many DMs just decide that the will limit the player options until they can only do what the DM wants to happen. This is worthy of complaining, because it is not a preference of style, it is forcing a style upon someone against their will.
But you seem invested in the idea that the players can never be in the right.
Nothing forces you to stay and support abuse in TTRPGs. This is not a life choice, It's at worst one evening of entertainment that you choose to participate in. If you don't like it, just walk out.
And yet, your position if taken literally, is that that one evening was something they deserved. Again, it isn't. It is likely little more than chance and convenience that brings people together, and no one deserves that turning into a rotten evening because of bad people.
See above. Believe me, for a number of reasons which will, in that case, remain private, I am truly horrified by abuse, whether it's (usual examples) familial or work-related. But equating that to abuse that you could get at a TTRPG table that is only entertainment and that you can get out of at any time with no more consequence than losing one evening of potential fun is for me totally unjustified. Moreover, if some of the people there are really friends, and the abuse is real, these friends should support you.
It's impossible for most people to go through life without family and a job, but D&D is only light entertainment and the guiding principle should be "No D&D is better than bad D&D" because D&D is not a necessity of life.
That being said, I'm also really sorry if you received real abuse, because that is bad. But where I stop following you is calling railroading abuse.
That line gets tossed around like that solves anything. "No DnD is better than Bad DnD!" but, have you considered it in practice, when paired with social norms? Have you considered what happens in a small community where you were the only player to speak up, and the only one to walk out, and the DM declares to the community that you were just an "entitled little-" of a player who couldn't stand not getting their way? At best it is your word against theirs, unless the other players speak up for you.
And not everyone has the luxury of playing with friends. Sure, that's the ideal, but a lot of us end up playing with strangers who hopefully become friends.
There is a lot that goes into these decisions, it is more complicated than just refusing to play if the game isn't to your liking. Especially if the pervailing culture is one of placing the blame with the players consistently.
Bu they can, it's the principle of the game. The players know only the world through the DM's description of it anyway, so whether the DM makes changes or not could be totally transparent to them, they will never know. This is why the most important thing at a table is trusting your DM. It's totally pointless to do otherwise. He is, literally, the master of the world.
And if, as in the OP's example, the DM has described what your character saw, then it's fine to make assumptions, but that is what the character saw, nothing more and nothing less. The player has zero entitlement to drill the DM for ten times as long because he wants to gain a purely technical advantage.
I disagree with just about all of that. And you seem to be ignoring my point in favor of just blaming the player, because the DM is the "master" and all trust and good things must flow too and from him. I mean, wow, it is literally pointless to do anything other than offer absolute trust to the DM, because he is the master of the world. Yet, you want to believe that arrogant DMs who abuse trust and twist the rules to leave their players helpless and confused in the game world, for some measure of power over other people don't exist? That it is all people making up stories because they are whiners and entitled?
No-one said that asking questions now and then is forbidden but coming back to a real example, re-read the OP's post. It's not even his character...
And again, considering DnD is a team game and people have abiltiies that affect more than just their own character, I don't see "it isn't even his character" as being relevant to the discussion.
Ah but it's not. Not at all. I just tell them "you can turn in any animal no larger than a bear", and that is a sufficient explanation. As a DM, I handle all the technical details and limitations, and if some limitations are thrown out of the window now and then (local rulings), who cares as long as everyone is having fun ?
And please don't start on the "if you're not using (all) the rules, it's not D&D", these same rules actually point out extremely precisely that it IS playing D&D, and that is is exactly what the spirit of at least this edition is about (I agree that it was not the same with 3e and in particular 4e, although house ruling was covered in both cases).
And they still have not read any single word of the rules.
So, you tell them that they can turn into any animal no larger than a bear. Which first of all, is telling them the rules, which as I said, is practically no different than reading them.
Except, that the practical differences are vast here. Because if that is what you told them, you have altered the rules to such an extent that I can't believe it. I could dig into the vast vast differences in the rules you have proposed, and the rules in the book, but that doesn't address the point.
If "you can turn in any animal no larger than a bear" are the only rules, then you telling the rules is the same as them reading those rules themselves. If they aren't, then the player is going to run into invisible barriers constantly as they find more things you didn't tell them (like the fact that they can't turn into a bear, nor can they turn into a sparrow). The game actually assumes that the players likely either read or had their abilities explained to them. And the game additionally assumes that those rules are likely going to be followed.
And yes, if you take the rules to a point where they in no way resemble DnD, then you are playing some TTRPG, but it isn't DnD 5e. Especially, if you just let the players sit down and declare abilities that they might be able to do, based on your whims, then you are likely playing a different game. Unless your position is that any time someone is playing in a fantasy world they are playing DnD, which I think is unsupported by the existence of multiple other Fantasy TTRPGs which are not DnD.
I have seen nothing of the kind.
Sure you have.
Absurdly so, and confrontational.
You mean, like a DM using weighted dice ?
As I see it, the problem is that you are confounding the objective and the means. My objective is for my players to have fun. If, to reach that goal, I use means that you don't like (e.g. railroading, fudging), etc. you have ZERO right to call that cheating or abuse, which is exactly what you are doing in this thread. So stop it, it's badwrongfun all over the place.
Play your game the way you like it with your own enforced limitations, but don't call other DMs cheaters or abusers because they use different tools now and then.
By the way, for me, what potentially makes a DM bad is not the means he employs, it's when his intent on running the game is not directly linked to his players having fun (like being on a power trip), but once more "no D&D is better than bad D&D" and if simple mature out of the game discussion to clarify it does not give you what you expect, just walk away, there is zero reason to suffer abuse.
I find it fascinating that despite the fact I have constantly said I do not believe a single DM in this thread has ever cheated, that people are taking personal offense and seeing personal attacks in the very concept that a DM might be capable of cheating.
I have not said that you are a cheater. I have not said you are an abuser. I have not said you are a Bad DM. I have simply stated that such things are possible. Railroading, to my understanding, is the equivalent of handing a group of players a theatrical script, letting them know what their roles are, what their lines are, and what they are supposed to do to put on the performance desired. And yes, I have directly experienced the sensation of that being what the DM wanted out of a session, so I will call railroading a bad thing. If you think that means a linear adventure where you guide the party past logical points (such as which road you turn down to get the Viridian City) to get to the fun part, then I apoligize that we have different conceptions of what the term means, but you seem uninterested in exploring ideas, you simply want to blast me as advocating your style is badwrongfun, when I have done nothing of the sort.
And kicking a player from the table (which I've never done on my own, just done I think twice because all the players agreed that playing with a specific person was just not feasible) is not malicious either. It's just a parting of ways because people have different expectations of what makes a simple game fun.
So if a player annoys the table and does nothing to change his behaviour, is just a realisation that maybe, they are not meant to game together, not a personal insult. Just as with different playstyles.
And if a DM annoys you with too much railroading, but it's his style and you prefer a more open style, which do you think is better ? A simple parting of way because you don't have the same expectations of calling him a really bad DM and saying that he abused your entitled player's agency ? This is why, in these cases, I really like to hear all sides of the story...
I played tennis with my cousin once, and we were having fun just playing exchanges. Then he insisted on playing a match, which I easily won 6-0 because I (used to) have a killer service. We never played tennis together again, because for him it's all about competitive play and winning. He is still my cousin, I see him regularly and we have fun together, we just don't play tennis together.
Kicking someone from a table can be malicious. I've seen and heard enough to know that is very possible. Many DMs who take any disagreement from a player as a sign they aren't right to game together, and kick them to "nip the problem in the bud".
Maybe the player should find a different group, but if their attitude is such that they are just mildly annoying to be around... that is going to be a constant problem for them. And I'm more than willing to put up with some mild annoyance if it isn't intentional or based in them trying to be malicious in some capacity.
And, I'm also never going to apologize for speaking up about a DM who is engaging in poor practices. If a DM decides to take away player agency without consulting the players first, then I'm going to call them out on it. Because behavior doesn't change if you never address it.
I'll match your story about your cousin with a story about a really good friend of mine. He was deeply into Magic the Gathering, and believed himself to be very very good at the game. I collected cards more by accident than anything else, but I had a few cards that gave rise to a very powerful combo, if I understood the interactions correctly. So, before we started playing a game, I pulled out those cards, showed them to him, and explained what I believed would happen with those effects. He agreed with me, and said it was fine to use them.
They got drawn, and played, and he started throwing a fit because he was losing. So, I surrendered the game and packed up my cards. I have never played Magic with him again. We are still very good friends. I understand why he is the way he is. We haven't talked much recently, because he moved states to get away from certain people and cut off his social media use, but that is life. I don't begrudge him being the way he is. I'll also call him on BS when he is acting out of line, because we can't change if we aren't aware of the need to change.