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

[pemerton]

I don't think your description of knowledge checks is accurate. When I wrote down 'proficiency: religion' on my character sheet, that already establishes my character is knowledgeable about religious matters. The check doesn't establish specific other details about the past--i.e., 'in year 3 at university, professor Ramsey gave a lecture about...'.

But how are those details, of where the PC learned things, established. And how do you create the character's memories? Does the player decide what the PC remembers about religious matters? Or does the GM? If the latter, is this a departure from the principle that "The GM controls the world, the player controls the PC"?

These are well within the purview of the DM. We don't need to accept "my PC dodges every attack and hits the enemies in vital areas with every attack" to say "the player controls the PC".

And so why does the Apocalypse World human ears example count as a departure from "the GM controls the world"? Or the strange runes example?

If "control" is not being used literally in one case, why must it be used literally in the other case?

I flipped the order accidentally. The claim from before was quantum for the GM but not the players. (I should think this was obvious...)

Not obvious at all, because I don't know what either bit of jargon means. I don't see how having things hinge on a GM decision in response to a wandering monster check is different from having it hinge on a GM decision in response to a player's roll is different from having it hinge on a GM's decision in response to a player's question, as far as "quantum" goes.

I mean, if you wanted to say that the GM's roll for wandering monsters is different from the other two, because no player is involved, OK.

Or if you wanted to say that the roll for wandering monsters and the skill check are different from the third example, because the latter is an extrapolative decision with no roll involved, OK.

But I don't know what it is that you are saying is supposed to make the first and third "not quantum" (for the GM and/or player) whereas the second one is.

 

[pemerton]

Holy failed assumptions Batman! Just because we don't use fail forward, does not mean that we want the PCs' lives to be boring. Those two things don't line up.

@Campbell didn't say what you are attributing to him. Just because he pointed out that P=>Q, it doesn't follow that he said that not-P=>not-Q.

 

[pemerton]

Why would I do that? I'm not running a narrative game. I'm not going to start inventing plots and such on the spot just because someone asked for the farrier.

It wouldn't make sense for their to be no farrier. If there was some reason for the farrier to be absent, then I wouldn't have forgotten the farrier.

And you're still wrong about that. The farrier existed the moment there was a town there. I simply recognized that fact when the player asked. Nothing was created in that moment.

You are asserting that there is a town entails there is a farrier. But this is not true. Some towns, at some times, don't have farriers, for any number of reasons: the farrier died, the former farrier died childless, the farrier ran off or was kidnapped, etc, etc.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sadly, some players have scar tissue from dealing with GMs that if you wanted to get anywhere you pretty much had to take this tact, and it doesn't go away just because you're now playing with a GM where you don't. Though not all, this is the cause of a lot of player bad habits; being trained into it by GMs who either didn't realize the implications of how they handled things, or didn't care.

This I can certainly grant. A lot of GMs--I'd say at least a third--genuinely either don't realize or don't care that their actions train their players. They do things that, intentionally or accidentally, teach their players a number of bad habits. A significant chunk of "murderhoboism" happens not because the players are inherently drawn in that direction, but because GMs do things that reward murderhobo-ing your way through the world and punish (sometimes extremely harshly) anything that deviates away from murderhoboism.

Often it's done in the name of what they call realism, but it's actually cynicism or even outright nihilism instead. Great example: Taking prisoners. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone declare they're frustrated by the fact that their players ALWAYS have a "kill 'em all" policy (doubly so if the players themselves get frustrated at their enemies following the same policy)....only to then reveal, when I ask them, that because of so-called "realism", any time any prisoner is taken, it is a functional 100% guarantee that (a) those prisoners will make life a living hell for their captors, (b) it will be extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to actually guard the prisoners in any way, and (c) if the prisoners are released, even if treated fairly and genuinely given a fair shot, they will 100% ALWAYS betray the party, regroup with the party's enemies, and make the party's lives WAY worse as a consequence. In other words, there is no advantage to taking prisoners, prisoners will always be the dirt worst no matter how you treat them, and if you don't kill them without mercy it will guaranteed always bite you in the butt later.

Under such conditions, why WOULD anyone take prisoners? It is, in every conceivable way, a bad idea. Even a very morally-upstanding adventurer, such as a sincerely-played, non-jerkass Paladin will have a strong incentive to not show mercy in combat, and to strike fast and strike hard.

I will say that I sat down to tell my players precisely how I feel about most of the known "GM trained their players bad" issues--that I strongly encourage taking prisoners rather than KoS, that the world may have some people who will fight to the death but many will prefer survival-with-conditions rather than that, that authority figures may be unreasonable sometimes but most of the time they're just trying to do their jobs and will at least make an effort to work with them, etc., etc. The only player who ever had an issue with this is the aforementioned kinda-not-great-fit player who left for personal reasons. (Before anyone asks, yes, I do know precisely what those reasons were, I am still friends with this person and we still do other non-TTRPG things frequently, so it had nothing to do with me or my GM style. I just won't share the details because it isn't my story to tell.)

I'd suggest you've had a fortunate ratio of, at worst "work in progress" players to ones with damage they'll exhibit at that table. I've seen otherwise excellent, and non-malign-intentioned players who will take advantage when opportunity presents. Some as a consequence of personal flaws, some because they've been taught its a necessity.

Possibly! There are still issues here and there (some of my players are very skittish, for example), but by and large we have only rarely had issues of any kind.

No offense, man, but if you think that on a consistent basis, I have to say you've been fortunate.

Frankly, I'll take being fortunate with players, since (based on what I've been told on here) I have been so fantastically unfortunate with GMs that, for some, it strains credulity.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Holy failed assumptions Batman! Just because we don't use fail forward, does not mean that we want the PCs' lives to be boring. Those two things don't line up.

Pemerton already called this out, but you're committing a formal fallacy here, called "denying the antecedent."

"P→Q" does not mean "¬P→¬Q". In non-symbolic terms, "if P is true, then Q is true" flatly does not say a single thing about whether "if P is false, then Q is false." The two statements are totally unrelated. For example, "if an animal is a cat, then that animal has hair" does not, in any way, imply "if an animal is not a cat, then that animal does not have hair."

It's only if you have a bidirectional relationship, "P↔Q", which has various non-symbolic translations such as "P if and only if Q", "P iff Q", or "all Qs are Ps, and all Ps are Qs."

 

[The Firebird]

But how are those details, of where the PC learned things, established. And how do you create the character's memories? Does the player decide what the PC remembers about religious matters? Or does the GM? If the latter, is this a departure from the principle that "The GM controls the world, the player controls the PC"?

And so why does the Apocalypse World human ears example count as a departure from "the GM controls the world"? Or the strange runes example?

If "control" is not being used literally in one case, why must it be used literally in the other case?

I think this is troublesome because you are treating "The GM controls the world, the player controls the PC" as an absolute with clear boundaries. But its more of a continuum. We can go on forever about if 574 or 575 or 576 grains makes a heap. But 10,000 grains probably is. 1 grain probably isn't.

Yes, in some cases in fixed world play, a player may exercise a minor amount of control over the world. A GM may exercise a minor amount of control over a PC. However, a player assigning meaning to runes probably crosses the line, while a player deciding their PC was an orphan as part of their backstory is probably fine.

(And let's be clear that 'two things are along a continuum' does not mean 'two things are the same', any more than red and blue light are.)

Not obvious at all, because I don't know what either bit of jargon means.

It has been stated several times in the thread.

I don't see how having things hinge on a GM decision in response to a wandering monster check is different from having it hinge on a GM decision in response to a player's roll is different from having it hinge on a GM's decision in response to a player's question, as far as "quantum" goes.

Yes, we're aware of that. That's the reason I commented--you expressed the other side of the argument incorrectly ("they are equating differences of method with differences of metaphysics") because you misunderstood their use of quantum as not applying to method.

Your description suggests you understand the difference between the scenarios. You just object to the label 'quantum' being used to apply to method. That's fine...but don't assume everyone is using quantum as you do. People have explained that is not the case.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think its situational, but a lot of the cases I agree; its not only gamist, its sloppy gamism that could be done other ways.

(There are obviously a few cases where it applies--jumping over a chasm--but they're the exception).

Quite agreed. "You simply cannot achieve what you want to achieve" requires much more in serious sim than just "you tried and couldn't do it earlier".

Social rolls, for example, are a common case where I would expect a "no retries without explanation" situation. When you've made an argument to someone, worked your wicked wiles, told a lie, whatever it might be...and it failed, just doing the same exact thing a second time isn't going to help. You need to come up with a genuinely new and distinct approach, nothing else will cut it.

But in general, yes. "You just can't attempt it again" is, in the generic, a gamist stance. It's just been adopted by a lot of sim players and....just sort of declared to be realistic even though that's not really how most "I attempted a task" situations work IRL. In theory, "take 10" and "take 20" rules are meant to address this, but those are also gamist workarounds to cover the fact that a binary-resolution skill system simply cannot account for the fact that most tasks are not a matter of pass-fail, but of speed, timing, and/or execution.

I wonder if the schooling experience, where assignments are primarily graded on "did you succeed or not", ingrains into people the idea that this is how tasks generally work? Idle speculation, but still...I wonder.

 

[Maxperson]

@Campbell didn't say what you are attributing to him. Just because he pointed out that P=>Q, it doesn't follow that he said that not-P=>not-Q.

"If you don't have an agenda as GM that includes making the character lives' not boring you should not use fail forward."

This seems like sophistry to me. Who has an agenda that includes making the characters lives boring? No DM that I've ever heard of. It implies that using fail forward is how you make the characters' lives not boring.

 

[Maxperson]

You are asserting that there is a town entails there is a farrier. But this is not true. Some towns, at some times, don't have farriers, for any number of reasons: the farrier died, the former farrier died childless, the farrier ran off or was kidnapped, etc, etc.

All of which are incredibly unlikely. So unlikely to happen at the exact time the party gets there in a traditional game, as to not occur unless the DM has remembered the farrier and determined somehow that one of those things happened.

You're still thinking like a narrative DM where very unlikely things can happen if the DM thinks it interesting for it to happen.

 

[Maxperson]

Pemerton already called this out, but you're committing a formal fallacy here, called "denying the antecedent."

"P→Q" does not mean "¬P→¬Q". In non-symbolic terms, "if P is true, then Q is true" flatly does not say a single thing about whether "if P is false, then Q is false." The two statements are totally unrelated. For example, "if an animal is a cat, then that animal has hair" does not, in any way, imply "if an animal is not a cat, then that animal does not have hair."

It's only if you have a bidirectional relationship, "P↔Q", which has various non-symbolic translations such as "P if and only if Q", "P iff Q", or "all Qs are Ps, and all Ps are Qs."

So what. All you guys are showing is that the structure of the argument is logically sound, not that the argument is sound. DMs don't have an agenda of making things boring for the players.