Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6988932" data-attributes="member: 85870">Agreed, nor do I think we should. But on a certain level, every RPG is both inclusionary and exclusionary. It's pretty much common wisdom these days there is some boundary, or limit on how you construct "D&D" (however you define it), beyond which point it morphs into something that is no longer "D&D" but something else (understand that in this context, I'm referring to "D&D" as the actual D&D product and any of its generally recognizable offshoots---Pathfinder, 13th Age, Castles and Crusades, ACKS, DCC, etc.). I don't think it's insulting to players who are looking for a gameplay style that advocates strongly for "fairy tale logic" to suggest, "You know, truthfully, D&D may not be the best choice for you. Have you considered X, Y, or Z as an alternative?" I'm also not suggesting that something that morphs into "not D&D" is in any way unworthy of our time and energy and passion, it's just that at some point we have to put a hard line on categorizations or else they no longer have any real meaning or serve any useful purpose. (For context, I've played exactly two sessions of an actual "D&D" game in the last five years, compared to nearly a hundred sessions of Savage Worlds, and 20+ sessions of GURPS). Is directing someone to a system that will work better for them "exclusionary" or simply trying to be helpful to the vested party in reaching their play style goals? Unless I'm reading it incorrectly, @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a> seems to be defining "fairy tale logic" as, "An internal consistency of events and perceived reality, that when applied to the fictional game world, removes focus from the logical processes underpinning the gameworld, and instead drives focus on the nature of characters' psychological and emotional relationships." And if this is your intent, then I completely agree with @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a>'s premise----achieving the desired "end state" posited by this kind of internal consistency will absolutely require giving some forms of player-centric control over the nature of the reality of the game world. @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=6696971" target="_blank">Manbearcat</a>'s explanation in a previous post about what such a "game state" might look like was spot on, in my opinion. The questions and narrative focus(es) in his example was EXACTLY the kind of thing I'd expect to have happening in a certain kind of RPG. It's just that I'd very rarely expect those same questions to be asked, and more importantly become the primary focus of the campaign, in a game of D&D.</blockquote>

Verification