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

[hawkeyefan]

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

No, there’s plenty of legacy elements of D&D I like just fine. But there are parts of the game that have changed, and parts that have stayed the same.

Some of those parts that stayed the same probably should have changed when other parts changed, but didn’t. And those unchanged parts can cause some
Issues.

I find the same to be true of some folks’ processes of play. They continue using some processes out of habit rather than because it’s the best process available.

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.

It’s more that the GM’s agenda is meant to interact with the players’. “Make the characters’ lives not boring” for instance is a principle in several narrativist games. It’s pretty broad in scope, but specific in application.

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.

The GM need not be purely reactionary. But when they take direct action… let’s say in framing a scene… they should be doing so in a way that is important for the characters, based on what the players have indicated they want to see.

It is that giving that narrative control to the players makes it more difficult for the players to immerse themselves as their characters. For example, because it heightens the PC/player distinction.

But this is in no way universal. That kind of ability to add something as my character makes me feel more immersed.

This is a matter of preference, and is entirely subjective.

Seems a little nitpicky to me. Is the 100% sim straw man going back into battle once more?

No, it’s not about simulationism so much as the quantum label. Until the Knowledge check happens, the character both knows and doesn’t know the bit of lore. Then the dice tell us which it is.

This kind of determination in the moment of play is very present in RPGs, and it seems strange to make the distinctions that are being made about them.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

I mean, it's not just him. The thread at large has consistently treated it as such; the GM does not touch the character in any way, it is sacrosanct and belongs to the player alone, while the world is absolutely sacrosanct and belongs to the GM, never to be touched by the player except through declaring the character's actions. And it isn't even just this thread! That "the character is sacrosanct" attitude is as old as old-school D&D.

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.)

No. But when previous posters have repeatedly and consistently argued that it isn't a continuum at all, that it is a hard binary and ne'er the twain shall meet, that it's NEVER okay for the players to have ANY such control at all, period, end of discussion? Then this argument falls apart.

Because that's very much what people have done in this thread. Pretty consistently, actually. Player interference with the world, of any kind, is verboten, and likewise GM interference of any kind into what a character does, thinks, feels, etc.

For God's sake, we had a whole tussle like two thousand posts back where people got persnickety about the GM giving even the VAGUEST descriptions of emotional response from the player characters. Your characterization of the argument simply rings hollow. It doesn't reflect how folks have actually argued here.

It has been stated several times in the thread.

Well, if I may, I would appreciate you humoring me on this point, as (you may have noticed) I kinda checked out of the thread for the preceding like 600 posts or so.

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.

Okay but now if people are using a word in ways that are overtly confusing to the rest of the thread, why are we not allowed to take umbrage with that?

People did exactly that on your side, regarding the usage of long-established terms elsewhere on the intertubes, with clear definitions provided upon request, and that was rejected as unacceptable due to being confusing and (allegedly) trying to win the argument through definition alone. But now your vocabulary is perfectly acceptable and everyone else should kowtow to it? Our objections about your usage of terms are inadmissable on their face, but your objections to our vocabulary are so strong they not only must be heard, but must be heeded?

This is precisely what I meant, way upthread, when I talked about double standards of argumentation here. Arguments that are (apparently) completely acceptable for the "traditional GM" side to make are, somehow, completely unacceptable when coming from anyone else. Why is that? Why do you get to declare your definitions, and we must follow them or else we're being unfair or inappropriate or irrational, but you can reject ours whenever you feel like just because you feel like it?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

.....

Max, you're still doing it. You are still asserting that someone is saying "OH SO YOU WANT THINGS TO BE BORING???" when they simply, flatly, are not saying that.

 

[Faolyn]

I don't tell you how to go about RPGing. What makes you think you're entitled to tell me how to do it?

You've said a bunch of stuff in this thread that has been quite belittling to other games and other modes of play. You've outright stated several times that your preferred games are simply better than others in one way or another. Just a few posts back, you said "I also think that many of those RPGers have not really grappled with the tension that arises" because they prefer to play in games where the GM controls the world. My gods! What gives you the right to say that about the way the majority of gamers play? You clearly think they're all playing wrong! In this very post, you say that my way of gaming is inherently worse than yours. You make blanket statements about how specific instances of play violate certain GNS principles (despite that being known to be an incomplete and outdated way of describing game styles), as if the only way a person can properly game is if they adhere to one of those three modes. You've made broad and incorrect assumptions about my game style and never acknowledged it when I pointed that out. You refuse to answer questions or address statements in favor of nitpicking word usage. You have spent so much time in this thread alone telling people, including me, how to play RPGs.

So if you can't take it when someone else says something like that about you, try not to dish it out so much.

Especially when it seems obvious you have little or no familiarity with how Marvel Heroic RP actually works. Cam Banks posted that what I was doing with MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic was "really great": Into the North - Cortex Plus Heroic Fantasy actual play Do you think you know better than him how the game is meant to be played?

Just because he thought you did well doesn't mean it isn't a rule that encourages godmode.

And what makes you think that you know, better than my player and me, what fits with the tone, genre and fiction of the game we were playing? I mean, I had an awesome session of play. If I'd followed your advice, I would have had a worse session of play. So why should I take your advice?

How do you know you'd have a worse session of play? Because it's not the way you normally play? Because you wouldn't get as much control over the world as you prefer?

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not about being "nitpicky". @TheFirebird said that the issues I mentioned don't arise in their games. And I replied.

Do you agree that knowledge checks violate "simulationist" causation? Or do you have a different way of handling them?

Also, not far upthread you posted this:
So sometimes you assert "always" and "never" , but don't mean it. But you criticise others for their departures from your preferred always and never.

I also acknowledge my mistakes. Nothing really is an absolute, so getting on folks for small departures from sim (which can themselves be explained as abstractions for ease of play) seems nitpicky to me.

Quite frankly, it reads to me like no one can do sim in @pemerton 's eyes unless they've mapped out every detail of their universe.

Of course, that's an absolute, so it's probably not true.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Right. The DM would have to homebrew in one being louder than the other. It's not RAW that it is. If you feel the need to make a failed attempt louder for some reason(and I see no reason why it should be), then you can do so.

The reason why the lock pick attempt might be louder on a failed roll is very simple; it’s because one way to fail at lockpicking would be to make such a racket that you attract attention.

That you may not like this idea for some reason does not mean it makes no sense.

It matters if you want the world to feel like it exists independently of the players. "Quantum" for the DM doesn't affect that feeling, since he is running the world and setting things like this up in response to player driven play.

If the roll is done in the moment by the DM, it takes a little bit away from the world being independent of the players, since the roll is happening right then because of the players, rather than having been done prior and the encounter already existing within the world.

But the players are making decisions in real time, why would the outcome of their decisions not also happen in real time?

Like, if I as a player have a choice between moving into the forest hex or into the hills hex, I expect that you as a GM need to know which I’ll choose so that you can then roll on the correct encounter table.

If I, as player, choose to have my character spend time searching a room for a secret door, I expect that you as GM need to wait until I’ve done that to roll for a random encounter. How would you know I’d have the character search and therefore trigger the roll?

Why would these things “already exist in the world” until made to exist in response to the characters’ actions?

If the roll is done in the moment by the players, it takes away a huge amount of the world being independent of the players, since the encounter is relying on a player roll.

Well, this is the standard way of doing it. You have your own way, and that’s fine… but it just makes your appeals to RAW for my suggestions but not yours stand out all the more.

It was there all along, since towns pretty much always have farriers. I just didn't think to write it down before then.

No it wasn’t. In the fiction, sure, we can easily imagine the farrier has been there all along. But the same can be said for all these other things… the cook, the guard, the farrier… in the fiction, yes, they’re all there. At the table, each is added to play by some trigger.

It would alert them with a successful roll as well, though. Poking around with tools trying to gently turn tumblers isn't going to be louder for someone without skill as with. At least not significantly so. You're making it sound like the unskilled person is just pounding the tools into the lock and making a bunch of noise.

I’ve not been comparing skilled vs. unskilled. It’s been about a skilled practitioner all along. That skilled practitioner may pick the lock quietly, or may do so unquietly, depending on the quality of their attempt.

A successful roll means they were quiet… they succeeded. A failed roll means they were not quiet and drew some attention… they failed.

I'm actually looking at the 5e rules and there's no such thing as picking a lock without skill. You must be proficient with thieves' tools to even pick a lock, so this entire argument is moot. It's skilled vs. skilled. One just may have a higher bonus is all.

Cool, I never mentioned someone without skill doing it. Not sure where you got that from.

Again, this is homebrew and not RAW. Homebrew has no real place in a discussion about rules. By RAW, picking locks picks the lock. There's nothing additional to it.

Well, rulings not rules is RAW, and that’s what this would be. Seems totally sensible for a DM to make this ruling given the circumstances.

It's not even a criticism, since we are applying the term to both sides of this discussion.

No, you’re applying the term differently to different instances.

I don’t know what you mean by “applying the term to both sides of this discussion”.

 

[Lanefan]

There is no inconsistency. There is just a difference in the way situations are presented and resolved.

And this is what I am finding a little frustrating about this conversation - the tendency of some posters to frame all RPGing through a rather narrow lens that happens to be their preferred lens, which assumes things like (i) all important backstory/setting elements must be established by the GM, and (ii) the only things that matter in the resolution of a declared action are very local, causal/mechanical processes. This is what I mean when I talk about (eg in reply to @Faolyn) posters assuming a simulationist approach to how situations are presented, actions resolved, and consequences established.

It is not inconsistent to use approaches that differ from that.

Consider again this from John Harper, explaining how Apocalypse World is to be played:

In Apocalypse World, the players are in charge of their characters. What they say, what they do; what they feel, think, and believe; what they did in their past. The MC is in charge of the world: the environment, the NPCs, the weather, the psychic maelstrom.​

​

Sometimes, the players say things that get very close to the line. Usually this happens when the MC asks a leading question.​

​

MC: "Nero, what do the slave traders use for barter?"​

Player: "Oh man, those [foul people]? They use human ears."​

​

That's a case of the player authoring part of the world outside their character, however -- and this is critical -- they do it from within their character's experience and frame of reference. When Nero answers that question, he's telling something he knows about the world.​

Where to me that's the GM just passing his duties off to the player. Regardless of system, a GM asking me that would get the response " <shrug> You tell me. I'm not big enough in the slave traders' union to make those decisions - way above my pay grade".

Also, does the player's answer here then have to be locked in as correct and accurate? Or can it turn out later that the player (be it in or out of character) was making something up either just for kicks or to intentionally deceive and if yes, how can (without having or using meta-knowledge) the other players ever find this out? Here for example the player might have just been trying to gross out the other characters; the slavers in fact use specially-marked wooden sticks (i.e. tallies) for barter but the player doesn't want this to be known.

 

[Lanefan]

Personally I'm not a fan of no re-tries unless the fiction informs the no-retry.

Oh, I am. The roll represents your best attempt over however long you're willing to give it, as an abstraction of whether you're up to this particular challenge on this particular day/time/opportunity. The only way to get another roll is if-when something materially changes in the fiction: a different character tries it, or a different approach is taken, etc.

Otherwise, people would be perfect. A hockey player would score on every shot he took, rather than the on-average 12-ish percent of their shots that score in reality. A swimmer, having established a personal-best time over a given length, would then swim that same time in every race thereafter.

I'd argue the no-retries principle is gamist not sim, but that it has been adopted by the sim-crowd.

Take-20 and similar rules, now those are pure gamist.

 

[The Firebird]

I mean, it's not just him. The thread at large has consistently treated it as such; the GM does not touch the character in any way, it is sacrosanct and belongs to the player alone, while the world is absolutely sacrosanct and belongs to the GM, never to be touched by the player except through declaring the character's actions.

That's not been my reading of the thread.

Okay but now if people are using a word in ways that are overtly confusing to the rest of the thread, why are we not allowed to take umbrage with that?

You are allowed to take umbrage with it. Just clarify that the criticism is about semantics, not substance. "They are using the word quantum to apply to method when I think it should apply to metaphysics" rather than "they are equating differences of method with differences of metaphysics".

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Most of the time IME the main considerations against taking prisoners in any numbers are one or more of:

--- we're standing into further danger and if they stay with us, they'll die; but we can't spare anyone to stay behind and guard them if we leave them here where it's safe(r)
--- even if we bail and leave right now we don't have and can't make nearly enough food to keep them all alive long enough to get them back to town
--- we're trying to be stealthy and even if these guys can be trusted they're still likely to give us away unintentionally

It's also worth noting that even in the real world attempting to escape is often seen as the number one duty of a PoW (and, of course, the number one duty of their guards is to prevent that escape).

Large-ish numbers of rescuees or freed friendlies often pose exactly the same problem of "what do we do with them while we're still in the field", if the rescuees don't already have survival skills of their own. Depending on their condition they might also represent a real drain on the PCs' curative powers.

Individually or in very small numbers, though, prisoners and surrendered foes can - depending on their personalities and-or level of loyalty - sometimes become useful henches or even full party members. Other times, though - and again dependent on their personalities - they might look for the first opportunity to murder the PCs in their sleep.

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.

The other, more meta, issue with prisoners is that taking prisoners now means the PCs have to do something with them; and not all players have the patience.