Bump
Power and Responsibility
- Thread starter Jürgen Hubert
- Start date
ruleslawyer
Registered User
Bumping this thread in part in response to the other thread about DMs and players not wanting domain-building/social games:
However, you're the one making the (IMO) untenable assumption that the RAW *exclude* the option of playing a game that involves something other than (or in addition to) dungeon delving, something that is directly relevant to the discussion (thankfully) but also something that I think the OP opposed as an assumption.
Okay, now you're no longer holding with original statement that "(u)ltimately, the only thing the Rules As Written allow for is the PCs to be bloody minded grave robbers and scalp hunters living and dying at the whim of unapproachable kings and queens," but moderating your assertion to "RAW leans vastly more to supporting killing and copse looting than to conducting nuanced political reform or establishing progressive politics. This tendency is RAW is so great as to be an express support for games of killing and copse looting and (at best) a tacit condemnation of games of nuanced political reform or establishing progressive politics."
Still, I'm having a hard time getting where you get "tacit condemnation." The Diplomacy skill and Leadership feat are right there for everyone to see. The existence of the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, the DMG2 and PHB2, the vast array of material on guilds and merchant societies and whatnot in the various campaign sourcebooks, the splatbooks, and Dragon indicate that if the RAW is in fact "tacitly condemning" such play, then designers of supplemental rules are ignoring said tacit condemnation.
Moreover, none of this has anything to do with Jurgen's original point about power and responsibility. Most of the issues that will determine the kinds of situations that PCs are confronted with and what options they can feasibly bring to bear will have to do with the campaign world setup, not the RAW mechanics. Finally, while there may be *more* rules for killing things in the RAW than for establishing a group of followers or building a monastery, that is not an explicit condemnation (or the opposite) of doing the latter. It just recognizes that the latter is dependent on highly campaign-specific issues that often require far more in the way of player-DM dialogue than actual mechanical resolution. The sufficient rules are there in the form of social skills, socially-useful spells and effects, and Leadership/Epic Leadership/Legendary Commander, not to mention all the supplemental stuff.
It isn't about your post; please don't feel picked on!The Grumpy Celt said:
However, you're the one making the (IMO) untenable assumption that the RAW *exclude* the option of playing a game that involves something other than (or in addition to) dungeon delving, something that is directly relevant to the discussion (thankfully) but also something that I think the OP opposed as an assumption.Okay, now you're no longer holding with original statement that "(u)ltimately, the only thing the Rules As Written allow for is the PCs to be bloody minded grave robbers and scalp hunters living and dying at the whim of unapproachable kings and queens," but moderating your assertion to "RAW leans vastly more to supporting killing and copse looting than to conducting nuanced political reform or establishing progressive politics. This tendency is RAW is so great as to be an express support for games of killing and copse looting and (at best) a tacit condemnation of games of nuanced political reform or establishing progressive politics."
Still, I'm having a hard time getting where you get "tacit condemnation." The Diplomacy skill and Leadership feat are right there for everyone to see. The existence of the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, the DMG2 and PHB2, the vast array of material on guilds and merchant societies and whatnot in the various campaign sourcebooks, the splatbooks, and Dragon indicate that if the RAW is in fact "tacitly condemning" such play, then designers of supplemental rules are ignoring said tacit condemnation.
Moreover, none of this has anything to do with Jurgen's original point about power and responsibility. Most of the issues that will determine the kinds of situations that PCs are confronted with and what options they can feasibly bring to bear will have to do with the campaign world setup, not the RAW mechanics. Finally, while there may be *more* rules for killing things in the RAW than for establishing a group of followers or building a monastery, that is not an explicit condemnation (or the opposite) of doing the latter. It just recognizes that the latter is dependent on highly campaign-specific issues that often require far more in the way of player-DM dialogue than actual mechanical resolution. The sufficient rules are there in the form of social skills, socially-useful spells and effects, and Leadership/Epic Leadership/Legendary Commander, not to mention all the supplemental stuff.
