D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[Hriston]

An overarching principle goes something like this

Authored fiction counts iff the author is doing so in the agreed way at the right time.​

​

Posters evidently have different ideas of "the agreed way". For example, one way I've been mulling to picture how many people play knowledge skills is that "enquiries invite GM to author fiction that is responsive". Where "responsive" includes - within the notional scope of the player's chosen knowledge domain and responsive to (constrained by) the questions they've asked.

Anyway, reading the debate on features like Ship's Passage and Criminal Contact, to my observation the background principles that determine how those should go, vary group to group. One mode is that one player has authorial control of the setting and other players must conform their fiction to the context they supply (including context supplied ad lib). An example of something similar is where a group of GMs running a shared campaign nominate one of their number to own the setting, or own an aspect of the setting, agreeing that the rest will conform with what they establish in that regard.

Another mode is where authors or designers external to the group altogether have authorial control of the setting and players (GM included) must (choose to) conform their fiction to that context. I think that is what folk generally imply by "genre". A group will follow some norms for what utterances are accepted, and where those norms can readily be seen to derive from an external reference then it's likely those norms are bundled up as a "genre". That's in contrast to the case where the group synthesize messily to produce their genre through play. It's not all or nothing. Choosing to play a character doomed to bring the apocalypse would be adhering to genre when playing Apocalypse Keys, even if authorship of other facets of the fiction were shared. Thus implying narrow and broad, homogenous and heterogenous notions of "genre".

So then the more specific principle you might be interested in goes something like this

Agreement on what fiction should count is grounded in norms.​

In that light, if I read your question correctly it asks - who owns genre? Who owns which constraining norms for our fiction? The answer to that evidently varies and it seems hard to me to conjure more than aesthetic or preferences arguments for one or t'other. True genre-less free-for-alls are rare if not absent altogether, to my observation.

I'll let @Scott Christian speak for themselves, but I tend to agree with you that it's a matter of preference, so my characterization of a DM coming up with fiction "on the spot" might seem disparaging to someone who prefers pre-authored fiction.

 

[Oofta]

agreed, there will invariably be things that were not discussed in session 0 and need a ruling on the spot. That the ruling takes place now does not make it any worse than declaring / announcing it during a session 0

One of the things I like about 5E, and will presumably like about 5E24 is that it's made clear that it's okay and even expected that every group will make the game their own. It does mean that a DM and a player aren't a good fit for each other. That's only an issue if there's not open communication in the group, but in most cases it's just the tip of the iceberg anyway.

 

[Oofta]

I'll let @Scott Christian speak for themselves, but I tend to agree with you that it's a matter of preference, so my characterization of a DM coming up with fiction "on the spot" might seem disparaging to someone who prefers pre-authored fiction.

If you run as open a campaign as I do, it's virtually impossible to have pre-authored fiction for everything. Even if it is pre-authored, what does that mean to the players? There will regularly be things hidden or unknown to the player, if there weren't there wouldn't be the fun of exploration and discovery. How would you know if something was made up 5 weeks or 5 seconds ago and why would it matter?

If I were an adversarial DM (I'm not, although challenge is part of the game) I could have set up the adversarial situation when I was planning the session.

 

[Hriston]

no, i did specify a Back*story* Event for a reason, rather than Back*ground* Feature, they are nowhere near equivilant in purpose or value.

You also said "An existing character trait like species or subclass". Surely, a background feature fits that description.

 

[Hriston]

i don't get to play so what happens to me is entirely irrelevant, but i still care about the principle of it, there are different kinds of weirdness, and just because some kinds of weirdness are given a pass that doesn't mean all kinds should be, i want a fantasy game, but i want a fantasy game with a world that feels consistent and logical.

So, you're imagining this thing, "I just so happen to know someone who lives there in basically every single location we visit", is happening in other people's games and then calling it weird, inconsistent, and illogical on "principle"? I'd just say mind your own business buddy!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Given the ever-increasing number of things DMs are being asked to discuss in session 0, it might soon be several sessions-0 before play can begin.

Or you just roll 'em up, drop the puck, and sort the rest out later.

I have a secret: I have never participated in a "Session Zero" in 40 years of gaming.

I mean, I've made characters as a group and discussed what campaign we're going to play (though most of the time we've made characters at home). And I estimate that I've played with a number approaching a thousand different people. (I often teach people how to play).

However, I think that it is a good concept - I just don't really do it that way. But I WILL use the term. I encourage open discussion of any issues - before, after, and (only if necessary) during every game. So if I say "session zero", I mean a whole lotta session zeroes. Any number of them that is needed.

 

[CreamCloud0]

You also said "An existing character trait like species or subclass". Surely, a background feature fits that description.

So, you're imagining this thing, "I just so happen to know someone who lives there in basically every single location we visit", is happening in other people's games and then calling it weird, inconsistent, and illogical on "principle"? I'd just say mind your own business buddy!

obviously not, as then i would've mentioned it as being a viable reason, but you're missing the fact that you already have the background feature which is where the problem is coming from, you can't use the background feature as justification for why the background feature will work in unlikely circumstance, that's just baseless circular reasoning.

Who said I was in Rome? @mamba made the claim I can’t possibly know anyone in Barovia because it’s a place I’ve never been. That claim is proven false by the fact Barcelona, Spain is a place I’ve never been, and I know someone there and consequently know of several other people I could seek out if I were there. The fact that, to the best of my knowledge, I don’t know anyone in Rome, a place I’ve also never been, is irrelevant. It’s also possible, although perhaps unlikely, I could have been to Rome and still not know anyone there. I mean, the two things — having been to a place and knowing people there — aren’t necessarily related. In a thread where claims of illogic abound, coming mostly from that poster, I just wanted to point out the faulty reasoning being used.

crossreferencing with this, your trait, established campaign events or back*story* information is being asked for as evidence that you have some prior connection to barcelona or rome or whereever else location you end up and want to use your feature, so you have the reciepts and reasonable grounds to say you know someone who's local to the area, rather than some 'whereever i go, there i am' nonsense of the feature perpetually working because you're always 'local' to whereever you end up.

 

[Hriston]

no, my ‘problem’ is that when the player ‘establishes fiction’ as you call it, I expect it to make sense / be explainable in the world by something other than a one in a million chance

So do I, and in my experience, so does the player. That you, apparently, can't think of a better explanation for the PC knowing the local messengers than they know them wherever they are or a one in a million chance isn't a problem with the feature. Remember, the group has agreed to imagine this fiction together. They're not going to create fiction that defies genre or their sense of believability.

If I did not care about that, then sure, why not know someone wherever you are and search for them. If you do not think about it, you can almost pretend that it makes sense. Just do not expect me to buy that.

Why doesn't it make sense to know someone where you are? Do you not know anyone where you are?

if I only know them in places where it makes sense for me to know them, can I ever find myself in a place where I do not know anyone?

Yes, of course, and that would include some places where the player doesn't use the feature.

My answer to that is ‘yes, and this includes most places you could potentially find yourself in’ while yours seems to be ‘no, such places do not exist’, and your only explanation for why there aren’t any seems to be ‘you yet again beat the crazy odds and find someone’. That is just not enough for me, that is just nonsense

It's also a strawman.

 

[Hriston]

You guys have been debating the Criminal background for 150 pages now with one side being "broken as written" and the other being "not used like that unless you're a jerk".

What I don't get is, after a decade, has anyone ever complained about this background, or any of the PHB backgrounds, ever? Has anyone ever said it was a problem in a game? I cannot recall that complaint. Not here, not Facebook forums, not Reddit, not the three other RPG message boards I belong to, nobody has ever complained that any of these backgrounds were problems in their games, either with jerk players "abusing" the abilities or there being some issue with the fiction of, for example, knowing a criminal contact in a location you've never been to before.

Why the heck are you guys so devoted to this argument? It seems to have no meaning. It has a ten year track record of not being a gaming issue.

The 2014 background features were never a problem until someone criticized the new books for not including them. Then, all of a sudden, there were "reasons" they were bad and had to go.

 

[tetrasodium]

I have a secret: I have never participated in a "Session Zero" in 40 years of gaming.

I mean, I've made characters as a group and discussed what campaign we're going to play (though most of the time we've made characters at home). And I estimate that I've played with a number approaching a thousand different people. (I often teach people how to play).

However, I think that it is a good concept - I just don't really do it that way. But I WILL use the term. I encourage open discussion of any issues - before, after, and (only if necessary) during every game. So if I say "session zero", I mean a whole lotta session zeroes. Any number of them that is needed.

That's probably a pretty common summary even for newer players/gms. I can only guess, but think that @Lanefan might have been knocking the near fetishization in recent years when it comes to reflexively jumping from "x can be a problem" to declaring that it can't be a problem because the GM & GM alone is responsible for covering that in session zero.

Personally I've tried running what was explicitly called "session zero" because I was tired of hearing a couple players grumble "well that [unforeseen edge case☆ that needs a ruling bob doesn't like] should have been covered in a session zero". Made a big deal about it & how the players should bring up anything they feel is important to clear up before we start another campaign. Unsurprisingly the grumblers had nothing to bring up.

☆One example was that after selling multiple looted fire resist items in earlier levels the players (led by Bob) decided that they were going to refuse to fight the dragon they had known about as a problem for months of lower level real world weekly sessions unless they took the time to make fire resist items. The fastest way to obtain the needed components from elementals was to attack a nature shrine/temple type thing & kill the elementals. Players were outraged that immediately taking a long rest in the desecrated temple resulted in a plague of stinging/biting insects that prevented a successful long rest the whole way back to town and that was never covered in session zero.