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

Social contract is a couple of steps over rules in big model isn't it? That is when we talk about not bound by rules we are talking inside the scope of play, not that we somehow suddenly are free to murder our friends litterarily with no consequence?
I have very, very little patience for invocations of "social contract" as though it provided anything at all.

The social contract is invisible. Its contents are changed on a whim when one person has all the power and the others have functionally none other than "flip the table and burn the bridge", metaphorically speaking.
 

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that can only happen if you actually describe the actions which would achieve that";
I don't see how that keeps the game grounded. I can easily describe something as "I open the door with my energy beam eyes". I'm describing the action, so that makes it fine according to you. What is there that says "but you don't have energy beam eyes"?
 

I don't see how that keeps the game grounded. I can easily describe something as "I open the door with my energy beam eyes". I'm describing the action, so that makes it fine according to you. What is there that says "but you don't have energy beam eyes"?
The fact that that isn't established in the fiction yet...?

People don't get to declare anything just because they feel like it. That's literally not following from the fiction. Doing precisely the opposite, in fact.
 


I don't think there are any Type-I facts in an RPG.

Even something as simple as saying that the PCs are breathing air isn't going to accurately portray all of the gas mixture here in the real world, which can vary slightly. It's not going to get the PCs correct oxygen absorption rate for the circumstances, heart rate, breathing rate, etc.

Everything fact in the fiction is going to be Type-II or Type-III.
i think this is perhaps nitpicking the accuracy of the replication of the facts, an owl has a flyspeed and a frog has a swimspeed in the game because...owls fly and frogs swim in real life, it might not be a perfect portrayal but it's still representing something true.
 

I have very, very little patience for invocations of "social contract" as though it provided anything at all.

The social contract is invisible. Its contents are changed on a whim when one person has all the power and the others have functionally none other than "flip the table and burn the bridge", metaphorically speaking.
But one person do not have all the power in this scope! The social dynamics at play in a typical game group rarely look like what you describe here.

When we say the GM is not bound by any of the game rules, that is a voulentary social agreement between everyone that wants to participate in the game that features this as part of the game description.

I have previously talked about how I was critisized for binding myself to the rules in two of my games. The GM isn't not bound because the GM is somehow doing a social power play. They are not bound because the social group demands it from them given the activity they collectively decided they wanted to engage in.

There are also other unwritten things that also affects what has actually been agreed to be the activity beyond the game system. A group coming together to play a game of homebrew looney tunes characters using the D&D ruleset as base is putting a completely different set of expectations on what the GM should be doing, than one wanting to reenact a realistic depiction of the crusades with no magic using the same basic ruleset.

There are nothing written separating these groups, but I will argue these social circumstances sets bounds on GM behavior that is stronger than what some know-it-all designer we don't know personally happened to write in their rulebook.
 

Social contracts accomplish nothing when someone can do whatever they want. That's the whole point.

Social contracts are where we establish that people can't do whatever they want. The game rules are merely an appendix to the agreement between people about what we are doing.

And yes, enforcement of social contracts is awkward as heck. I am sorry, but being human is awkward as heck.

Until such time as we have game books that, I dunno... deduct money form the GM's and players bank accounts when rules are broken? Calls the Game Police to confiscate your dice, or something?... enforcement of all game rules is an extension of social contract.
 

That one might pass because its obscure--but you never want to assume its not something someone just happens to know. Gamers are often troves of obscure and mostly useless information. I've got a couple I know are minor-league animal nerds, and another who was originally trained as a zoologist. In other groups I've seen other things on different topics.
But what is the point? The DM is still going to rule. Even if a snake specialist says such and such snake can't climb down a rope, I'm probably going to say "Well this one did so what do you do now?"
 

I have very, very little patience for invocations of "social contract" as though it provided anything at all.

The social contract is invisible. Its contents are changed on a whim when one person has all the power and the others have functionally none other than "flip the table and burn the bridge", metaphorically speaking.
I believe that is the intent of D&D at it's founding and a fun playstyle for many of us. You can of course play differently.
 


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