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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8803150">Little on the foggy side today so I hope this answers your question without me getting lost in the weeds (feel free to ask for clarifications) It really could mean anything. I just meant not all games will need to outline an approach (there may be a culture of play already, the designer may want to present game mechanics and a setting but offer no prescription in terms of how it is GM'd etc). I wouldn't use language like received wisdom here though. Both because that isn't the only way one could use such material (if there is no direction in terms of how you manage adjudicating rulings, dealing with 'scenes', etc that means its open to a variety of methods, so it could also mean you are keeping that aspect of play open or neutral so GMs and players can bring in methods from other systems or styles. I.E. you may just be writing a book that is meant to be played by both old school players and by new school players, by people who want dungeon crawls, and people who want to explore themes and drama, etc. But it could also mean you are leaving it open so it as fluid as possible because you are hesitant to reduce the flow of play to a clearly dillineated process. That might be filled in by what people have learned from other games, but also what they've learned through experimentation, what they've devised in response to the present group they are in, etc. Keep in mind I wasn't saying all books should be this way, just I don't think it's necessary for all RPG books to prescribe a process. I don't play 5E so I can't speak to that, but I know back when I first started, books were all over the map in terms of advice, and we often just blatantly ignored whatever methods they described for what seemed to work for us, what we saw other people doing that we liked, etc. It wasn't so much about received wisdom, as seeing how other people played. You did need a culture of play, but I think that is part of my point. Part of what makes the hobby function is not just those words on the page but the cultures of play that have emerged. I can think of many instances where a book had the obligatory "What is an RPG" section and the obligatory "here is how you play an RPG" and it seemed to capture a sliver of what was really going on (it is simplified for the reader, but seemed more meant as a guard rail for beginners because after a while you just played in a much more intuitive and fluid way based on whatever your preferences were). Maybe some of this is coming from a place of liking different tables to have slightly different styles. For me, one of the worst things to happen in the d20 era (at least for what I like) was all the tables starting to look and play the same. I don't know how that happened, I don't know how widespread it was, but I did begin to see, at least where I was gaming, a lack of variety from table to table in terms of the things we are discussing (and other things as well, like how an adventure is designed). For me I always loved the experience of showing up to a game and having the GM tell me they did things a little differently, explained what they meant and I got exposed to new ways that I could use or not use, tools to carry in my belt of tricks. Or going to a group that just did things radically different for reasons of their own. One of the best examples of this is the group in my area that had co-GMs. I had never seen this before, I had never seen it in an RPG book (its probably in one somewhere, but I'd never heard of it). And the way they divided the GM labor up was really cool (if I recall one was in charge of 'running the game' while the other managed NPCs and things like that). It was an interesting set up. By the same token, I've been in groups where things moved from scene to scene in a structured way (and how this was done would be different depending on the group). I don't play 5E so I don't know. But I think the point in cases where this is left open, games would be free to resemble whatever approach they want. There wouldn't be one way that the community understands play to be. It would vary from table to table. Whether this is the approach D&D needs to take or not. I don't know. I am not invested in the latest editions of D&D, I don't really have a dog in that argument. All I can say is D&D needs to do whatever it can to retain the largest audience possible, perhaps while growing that audience (though I would say I think they've probably reached close to the peak of what the hobby can be but maybe I am wrong). I am guessing the best way to do that is provide an overview of some of the prescriptive approaches Pemerton has suggested, while also explaining looser approaches and how people might want to make it their own or learn by observing and participating in other peoples campaigns. I think D&D, since it is a game for everyone, probably needs to take a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach. But again, I am not invested in it. I don't know what the D&D audience wants or needs. They should do whatever is going to help them retain the audience they have while growing that audience if they can.</blockquote>

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