D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Lanefan]

Which is fair. I'm not at all ashamed of my playstyle or playing D&D. However, that does not mean that it's okay to disparage what I do or that I shouldn't push back at such disparagement.

I'm kind of the other way around: disparage what I do if you like, but keep in mind I'll happily give back what I get, maybe with a bit of compounding interest attached.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Whilst I can understand your perspective here, it's been pointed out, more than once, that the illusionism from the GM is important to certain players in helping maintain their suspension of disbelief (and by extension, immersion). That transparency you consider a sign of integrity is actively detrimental to the enjoyment of that sort of player.

But I was told, repeatedly, by several people in this thread that it cannot be illusionism. That that would be a violation of the trust between player and GM. That that would be a failure to depict the world honestly and to actually give the players their due.

So now is all that stuff people said over and over and over about how GMs "wouldn't do that", way up thread, suddenly false and hollow? Because that's sure as hell how it looks now! Now the GM is supposed to conceal things, and make stuff up as they go, and to keep up a pretense of always having an answer, an outright false illusion of never manipulating the world in any way other than diegetically.

Every one of those times I said that these supposed limits on GMs could be brushed aside whenever and however the GM liked, people said I was wrong, wrong, wrong. That I was being jaundiced and unfair and making a boogeyman out of nothing.

Now you're telling me it actually does happen! And at least one person who specifically told me that previously has given your post a thumbs up!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm kind of the other way around: disparage what I do if you like, but keep in mind I'll happily give back what I get, maybe with a bit of compounding interest attached.

A lovely sentiment that never, ever results in terrible things.

And folks wonder why I have a skeptical view of the so-called "CvC" playstyle.

 

[Lanefan]

No, I'm stating a pretty well known part of writing. You can't have a piece be all something all the time. To quote Asimov, "you can't build a symphony on just one note." He was talking about dystopias/utopias there, but it makes sense for all genres. If something is 100% something, it becomes parodic.

I was responding to "but it's not sustained in any way." You don't want it sustained all the time.

In fairness, maybe he does.

I think it was @Manbearcat (is he even still around?) who repeatedly put it as something like aiming a firehose of [adversity? conflict? - can't remember his exact term] at the characters. If done right, this would I suppose lead more or less to sustaining conflict all the time...which just sounds highly stress-inducing to me and wouldn't exactly gel with the kick-back-and-relax style of play preferred by, I suspect, the vast majority of the hobby.

 

[AlViking]

Yeah, it is surprising. For the same reason that the GM needs to come up with stuff on the fly… because you can’t come up with everything ahead of time. Even a 50 page backstory can’t encompass all the details of a fictional life.



Exactly. There’s a lot in modern D&D (both in the products and in play at the table) that is like a weird holdover from the old days.

This is why I tend to find it useful to accept that these things will happen, and to be ready for them and use them to positive effect rather than simply trying to eliminate them.

It seems like everything bad = old = not what you personally prefer = "a weird holdover".

I stated above the reason I want to have a player work with me on their backstory is for multiple reasons. I care about my world's lore, players don't know as much about my world as I do and I want to ensure they don't contradict it while also helping them flesh out details. Collaborative world building has a lot of downsides for me as a player, I want to immerse myself in my character and explore the world, not build it.

It's fine if we have different preferences and styles. But we can do that without calling other people's preferences "weird".

 

[Lanefan]

You may as well ask, of a group using the DMG Appendix A random dungeon generation, "Was the corridor/door/room/whatever there all the time, or did you have to roll for it?" Like, yes?

Randomly generating the dungeon as the PCs reach it doesn't work for much the same reason: if nobody knows what's in the next room it can't be foreshadowed, telegraphed, or in any other way made to usefully interact with what the PCs can already observe ahead of time.

Hypothetical example: players reach a (previously-randomly-generated) rickety wooden door at the end of a passage. DM now rolls that behind the door is a room containing a feature that generates extreme cold. If the door's as leaky as it seems, the PCs should have noticed increasing cold all the way along the passage and maybe even in the previous room. Oops.

Real example from a game I once ran: the module was being written by someone else at the same time I was DMing it; each week I'd get another instalment, and the writer just had to make sure he stayed ahead of where the PCs would probably get to in the next session. Part of it involved the PCs following a long gravel road into some mountains to a major hideaway for powerful people. The PCs were on the road long before the author wrote the hideaway, and when he finally got to writing the hideaway he noted they used horse-drawn wagons to bring in supplies - along the same road the PCs had just travelled! In hindsight they should have been able to notice wheel tracks and hoofprints in all sots of places, and maybe even met an empty wagon or two returning to civilization for another load. Oops.

Lesson learned: design the whole dungeon before the PCs get there!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I was thinking of a case where the group goes through their old village in the course of the game, and suddenly who and what their family is actually has some bearing, something it wouldn't have generically had. But your situation with your daughter sounds similar.

I've seen GMs would absolutely insist on doing said filling in themselves, which seems weirdly overprotective of their authority over setting for something relatively minor (again, assuming you don't have a player who's trying to get some sort of serious advantage out of how they do that, but that's usually going to be pretty obvious).

It's worth noting, this is why I always say that I support specifically genuine player enthusiasm, which I have always defined (or at least have done so consistently for years) as non-exploitative, non-abusive, and non-coercive. Exploitative means something that runs counter to the spirit of the game, the tone and style we're collectively aiming for, often (though not exclusively) by way of ridiculous rule "interpretation" or treating a courtesy as something to be ruthlessly...well, exploited for all it's worth rather than treating the GM and game with a modicum of respect. Abusive means being hurtful or cruel to others at the table, causing emotional distress or otherwise being a big butthole about things. Coercive means manipulating or controlling the actions of others to induce them to do what you want, usually against their will or at least deceiving them into "willingly" agreeing.

Long as a person is not doing any of those three things, I am already 95% confident that whatever it is they're looking to do, it's either acceptable on its face, or just needs mild tweaking to get where it needs to go. And even that 5% is mostly "this just needs more work". I very, very rarely need to stay "no" because...the things my players pursue are reasonable and fun and appropriate. If they want a thing but it doesn't fit, we spend a couple minutes talking about it, and very nearly always there's a path forward, usually without any real effort at all on my part. I can count the times where I just had to say "no" outright on one hand, in years of running the game, and most of those were with a player that chose to depart the group for personal reasons (which was, honestly, for the best.) I believe it's exactly two cases other than that, one was a new player asking to play something I didn't think I could reasonably run this specific game for (a sapient familiar), the other a plan that made sense to the player but their explanation simply didn't make sense to me (nor anyone else at the table) so they scrapped it and did something else instead.

It really isn't that hard to have people on more or less the same page, and willing to talk things out and address the gap if you aren't there yet.

 

[pemerton]

To create a story through resolution of a situation you need characters with conflicting wants and ethos. You put the characters together in scenes and see if things change between them and how.


This is the situation in the last game I played in.



There is a plague devastating the land of Anonia and…

King Mirthius does nothing. He is in deep in grief from the hunting death of his oldest son and heir to the Kingdom. He has become withdrawn and listens only to the portents of the sage who predicted his Sons death, the portents he ignored, the portents of…

Leotrix, a charlatan who struck it big. Masquerading as a sage he now has the kings ear and a life of luxury, but he fears his ruse won’t last long and is looking for an escape. He knows that people have suspicions about him and one of those people is…

Samantha, head of the Kings guard. At a loss of what to do about the plague she is thinking of taking matters into her own hands. She just needs to show that Leotrix is a fraud. And as if that wasn’t enough, one of the newest recruits to the Guard…

Theodore, an eager and straightforward youth, is sleeping with…

Princess Yasmina, deeply in love with Theodore but how can she marry him when whoever has her hand will become the heir to the kingdom, one such suitor is…

Paulus, a noble of high renown. He seeks Yasminas hand in marriage, ostensibly for all the reasons the son of a powerful lord should, but in actuality because he is a servant of….

Sierra, a worshipper of the malevolent god Thrak’ulsus. She seeks to spread the gospel of her god, build a great temple to his glory, and rain down ruin upon those who stood by while she was wronged. To do this she first manipulated…

Thomas, the Noble lord and father of Paulus. He has arrived at the royal palace to seek favour for his son, although at the moment he is in the throne room watching…

Renald, the court jester, a confidante of Yasmina, he seeks to move on from being a fool and become a poet, he has been called to perform this very day and decided that rather than prat falls he will give the audience the gift of song….


----

I've thrown away my notes for this but a quick over view of the first few scenes is as follows:

Scene one: the throne room: all 9 members of the cast are there as the King attends to business. The issue of the plague is brought up and the King consults Leotrix who says that the gods will stop the plague if a great festival is thrown. When talk of an heir comes up he says he is tired and leaves.

Scene two: Theo and Yasmina are in the gardens and she asks him to forget his duties and attend to her. Theo tells her that he won’t do this and being a kings guard is a serious business.

Scene three: Samantha speaks privately with the king and tells him point blank he has to do something about the plague. The king says he will not ignore the portents of Leotrix.

Scene four: Thomas frets about whether Yasmina and Paulus will marry. Sierra tells him he must get Leotrix on their side, using whatever means he feels are necessary.

Scene five: Renald is disappointed the King left before he got a chance to play. Yasmina says she will arrange it so he gets to play at the height of the festival before all the nobility.

Scene six: Samantha goes behind the Kings back, into the city, and starts ordering the plague doctors and wardens to demarcate stuff (basically deal with the plague)

Scene seven: Paulus and Thomas discuss what to do about Leotrix.

Scene eight: Paulus and Thomas basically ambush Leotrix in his room. Call him a fraud, which he denies. Intimidate him a bit, he breaks. They make a deal that they’ll pay him very well and create a way out for him to go and live a life of luxury elsewhere. He just has to say some things to the King.



Overall it was about 70 scenes over two sessions. Some stuff that happened, Theodore gets murdered by a demon summoned by Sierra. Samantha deals with the plague and arrests Paulus and Thomas. Sierra flees. Samantha has saved the day but is exiled because she disobeyed the Kings orders, she goes off to who knows where with Renald (now a poet), hoping to document her deeds. Yasmina and Mirthius, both wrecked by guilt have a huge argument where they accuse the other of putting their emotions above the good of the kingdom. They both accept they're doing that and decide to get on with it.

This is interesting. The set-up reminds me of the sort of thing I would get from the In A Wicked Age oracles.

A couple of questions, if I may:

* How much of the various character's secrets (eg that Leotrix is really a fraud, that Renald longs to be a poet, that Thomas and his famil/party are really worshippers of a dark god, etc) was known to everyone at the start of play? When I've played In A Wicked Age, generally these backstory elements, everyone's "best interests", etc are shared knowledge at the table.

* How did you resolve interpersonal conflict (eg arguing about things)? One limitation/challenge I've experienced GMing In A Wicked Age is that it leaves talking to be resolved by free roleplay.

 

[Lanefan]

If you don't have an agenda as GM that includes ...

I get people might favor or not favor particular GM agendas or principles in the play they prefer...

I got the impression from some, way upthread, that the point of non-traditional play in their view was that either the GM wasn't supposed to have an agenda in the first place or, perhaps, that the GM's ability to have an agenda was to be taken away or overwritten by the players' agenda.

In other words, the GM is supposed to be purely reactionary (other than maybe the very first setting-off scenario). Yet the very term you use here, "GM agenda", suggests pro-actionary rather than reactionary, as an agenda is usually defined as one's plan for what comes next. and-or how things are to operate.

 

[Lanefan]

A lovely sentiment that never, ever results in terrible things.

And folks wonder why I have a skeptical view of the so-called "CvC" playstyle.

It's a simple principle: if you don't want me to fire the last shot, don't fire the first one.