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

[hawkeyefan]

I’m just looking for someone to explain why that shouldn’t happen, to which no one seems to be able to give me an answer.

The DM.

So why would you expect the GM of an Apocalypse World game to be different in this regard?

And do you think players may be responsible, as well?

This is entirely possible. I don’t take anecdotes as representative of anything general, and I know my players are inclined to get silly. Which is why it helps to have someone that keeps them grounded in the fictional world.

What I’m really pointing at, is what I suspect to be the case: it’s a social contract that keeps the players sensible.

Oh... okay, so it's not the GM it's the social contract? Or are you saying it's both?

And if it's both... isn't that really just saying that it's the GM and players? I mean, they're the ones that agree to the social contract.

Yeah, that’s my point, it’s a social contract. It doesn’t matter what type of game you play, there is still a social contract between all participants to play in a way that everyone enjoys.

Okay, sure! So the terms of this agreement, are they explicitly defined? Implicit? Both?

That raises the question: how do you handle disagreements, without the evenings entertainment becoming an acrimonious argument (like an unmoderated forum)?

Talk it out like adults. I would think that'd be part of any social contract.

Don’t even need to say anything. A decent DM pays attention to the emotional responses of the players, and will notice when a player is unhappy and make adjustments without them needing to say anything.

I find this bit of advice highly questionable. It assumes a lot of the GM, and of the players. This would never be my advice to anyone for just about anything.

Communicate. Don't hope that someone can read your mood from body language or other cues. You can simply voice how you feel, or what your concern may be, and then talk it out. As a GM, I regularly check in with my players... and these are people I've known somewhere between 30 and 43 years. I can't and don't always pick up on dissatisfaction they may have. I'd recommend this of other GMs... check in with your players regularly. Every session is ideal, but not always necessary... but it never hurts, so I'd err on the side of the more frequent the better.

 

[Enrahim]

I've been very active in public games, bother game days and conventions. I've had the occasional poor-to-middlling DM because I've likely had over a hundred DMs over the decades. I can't even guess how many I've run for over the years

I have never encountered this power hungry DM flaunting their autocratic might. Meanwhile I have been at, run and heard about tables where the other players expressed their appreciation of the DM shutting down rude, abusive, overly domineering players. Maybe that's just a numbers thing since 5-6 players per DM is typical.

I want the GM to make a call during the course of the game when there's a disagreement. We can always talk things through offline but if you get a half dozen people playing a game wit somewhat complex rules, occasionally there's a disagreement. If you don't have one person designated to make the decisions, my experience with committees and similar is that the loudest or most obstinate person ends up making the decision. I don't see how that's any better.

I think this has an obvious bias though. For one thing I think the worst offenders would normally not feel comfortable running a public game. The loss of control associated with running the game for strangers are likely not something someone with strong tendencies toward that trait would happily jump into.

There is another more subtle bias: I would think you yourself might have gotten a reputation in your circles for being one that runs games in a traditional way. Causally mentioning previous bad experiences with traditional GMs might just not come up naturally as part of the conversation. Meanwhile I do not know what sort of reputations or conversation topics @Thomas Shey might enjoy that seem to provoke a steady stream of complaints the way described.

I for instance do recognize that most of my own RPG conversations tend to focus on good memories when talking about play. I have had some ridiculously bad experiences as well. So I guess that if I got into a friendly conversation about various styles of play, and potential pitfalls of trad I could easily share an anecdote that could be marked off as yet another data point indicating how bad and dominating a certain trad culture is.

That is one of the big challenges with understanding data, there are a lot of details regarding how it is collected, what exactly the prompt was, and the sensitivity for a "trigger" that make it really hard to interpret. @Thomas Shey seem to have significant experience, and also a certain awareness of this; hence I am taking what they claim regarding this matter very seriously.

If there really is some somewhat hidden sub culture that give a good way of running games a bad reputation, that might be something that would be nice to be aware off, in particular to be able to single out easy ways to talk about how what we are doing is critically distinct from what they are doing. My gut feeling is that just invoking "common decency" doesn't do that job.

 

[Lanefan]

It is a game amongst friends. It's not like someone is emperor of the world. They are the DM for the game.

Ideally, the bolded is the case.

More and more, however, it is a game amongst some random people online or at a game store, who were complete strangers before the game began and may or may not ever become friends.

 

[Campbell]

I don't where this idea that games that have best practices or agenda and principle laid out for the GM are doing so to protect players from the GM. They're there to help the GM run the specific game in question to like line up with the objective it gives its players. Make PC-NPC-PC triangles certainly is not an instruction to protect players.

As we have line out before multiple times in this thread, most of the games we're talking about give the GM some level of shared ownership of the character you are playing and involve some level of scene framing authority that allows them to assume certain actions. Trusting the GM is maybe even more important in Apocalypse World.

 

[Lanefan]

I dunno. I once had a player take up 5 to 10 minutes of game time arguing with me about what a piece of particular technology should look like. Never mind that this was under a different technology base than we currently work. Never mind that the character was not proficient with the technology. The player worked for a company that made these devices, so if there was nothing there that looked like that, the "research lab" they were exploring was a fraud....

Sometimes, in cases like this, deferring to the player who knows stuff can be a good approach.

Horses are a common sight in fantasy games, yet as DM I know nothing about them beyond that they have 4 legs, they eat hay, some people ride them, and sometimes they run really fast. And so, when I had a player in my game who had decades of experience with horses, whenever something horse-related came up I'd just turn to her and ask how it worked.

My current DM doesn't really know a boat from a bazooka; I'm no maritime expert but I do know a bit more than he, thus sometimes when boating questions come up he'll ask me for advice.

 

[Enrahim]

I don't where this idea that games that have best practices or agenda and principle laid out for the GM are doing so to protect players from the GM. They're there to help the GM run the specific game in question to like line up with the objective it gives its players. Make PC-NPC-PC triangles certainly is not an instruction to protect players.

This idea go back to the forge times. It was a huge deal then. It is not about the spesific elements, but rather about the entire design philosophy of spelling out the roles of players and GM in a way that bound a GM to something, and that this something should be player visible. For instance if a GM invite to a game that features "Make PC-NPC-PC triangles" as a required principle, the players can call foul if they recognize there are no such triangle at play. The principle is not protecting the players as such; but that the principle is publicly mandated in the player facing game text provides a level of "protection" against the GM not introducing this as an element (The assumption being that those things players are afforded protection against is things the players agreeing to play this game would find undesirable given their decision to play the game).

 

[The Firebird]

Oh, no they aint!

Look, there's a whole lot that a credible researcher does to support the integrity of data that regular people just don't do with anecdotes. Like, record them individually and separately, with accompanying metadata.

Agree with @Thomas Shey on this one. They may be poor quality data compared to some other types, but often that is all we have to work with.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There is another more subtle bias: I would think you yourself might have gotten a reputation in your circles for being one that runs games in a traditional way. Causally mentioning previous bad experiences with traditional GMs might just not come up naturally as part of the conversation. Meanwhile I do not know what sort of reputations or conversation topics @Thomas Shey might enjoy that seem to provoke a steady stream of complaints the way described.

"Steady stream" probably overstates it. Keep in mind, again, I'm talking about information I've gathered over a half century. Most people who have these sorts of problems aren't going to talk about them constantly--but they'll still tell stories about events over time, and you also see things like GMs who talk about a top down approach who suggest that their players are all fine with it, and then see some players in a different place that you know are talking about the same game, and have a very different story.

I've also sometimes seen players complain about GMs who are too lenient or favor some players over others. But over time its not hard to start noticing trends in frequency. Add in noting the sensitivity some GMs have to being challenged--at all in some cases--and it doesn't require a big reach to conclude this approach isn't exactly optimal, even if it works for some people and groups.

(And just to make it clear, this can even be a problem with GMs who manage to hang onto players well; there can be all kinds of reasons for that including limited options, player expectations that the next GM will just be the same, or the GM involved being really good at some parts of running a game so that their players will tolerate really annoying top down behavior. Just like you can have GMs who have a very good set of player relations skills who are terrible in other areas).

I for instance do recognize that most of my own RPG conversations tend to focus on good memories when talking about play. I have had some ridiculously bad experiences as well. So I guess that if I got into a friendly conversation about various styles of play, and potential pitfalls of trad I could easily share an anecdote that could be marked off as yet another data point indicating how bad and dominating a certain trad culture is.

That is one of the big challenges with understanding data, there are a lot of details regarding how it is collected, what exactly the prompt was, and the sensitivity for a "trigger" that make it really hard to interpret. @Thomas Shey seem to have significant experience, and also a certain awareness of this; hence I am taking what they claim regarding this matter very seriously.

I come from an information sciences background, so I'm aware of the risks of selective perception and limited data. Yet, at a certain point in life, even with things which there are no experts, you have to come to some conclusions to operate. In these particular cases while I'm aware that I have certain sorts of data sources, I've never seen anyone come up with any sort of explanation of why these sorts of sources would particular bias toward producing the conclusions I've had. I'd at least look at that.

(Its why when someone says "That hasn't been my experience" I'm sincere when I say "I'll take that as a data point". Its just that at this point in my gaming life, I have a rather large number of data points.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ideally, the bolded is the case.

More and more, however, it is a game amongst some random people online or at a game store, who were complete strangers before the game began and may or may not ever become friends.

And I have to note, not all gaming groups have particular close connections outside of gaming. When I was younger I used to go to movies with a few of my gaming friends occasionally, but that's been decades now.

(That doesn't mean I still don't consider them friends, but I'm just noting sometimes "friends" have some connotations that don't apply. Probably my longest living friend was a fellow gamer I stopped playing with about a year ago because the dynamic of that group had become unpleasant. Since then only thing I've done with him was exchange an occasional email.)

 

[AlViking]

I think this has an obvious bias though. For one thing I think the worst offenders would normally not feel comfortable running a public game. The loss of control associated with running the game for strangers are likely not something someone with strong tendencies toward that trait would happily jump into.

There is another more subtle bias: I would think you yourself might have gotten a reputation in your circles for being one that runs games in a traditional way. Causally mentioning previous bad experiences with traditional GMs might just not come up naturally as part of the conversation. Meanwhile I do not know what sort of reputations or conversation topics @Thomas Shey might enjoy that seem to provoke a steady stream of complaints the way described.

I for instance do recognize that most of my own RPG conversations tend to focus on good memories when talking about play. I have had some ridiculously bad experiences as well. So I guess that if I got into a friendly conversation about various styles of play, and potential pitfalls of trad I could easily share an anecdote that could be marked off as yet another data point indicating how bad and dominating a certain trad culture is.

That is one of the big challenges with understanding data, there are a lot of details regarding how it is collected, what exactly the prompt was, and the sensitivity for a "trigger" that make it really hard to interpret. @Thomas Shey seem to have significant experience, and also a certain awareness of this; hence I am taking what they claim regarding this matter very seriously.

If there really is some somewhat hidden sub culture that give a good way of running games a bad reputation, that might be something that would be nice to be aware off, in particular to be able to single out easy ways to talk about how what we are doing is critically distinct from what they are doing. My gut feeling is that just invoking "common decency" doesn't do that job.

A lot of my experiences and discussions have been at gaming conventions or game days in cities where I don't DM. Again, it's not that I haven't had a small handful of bad DMs here and there or discussed bad DMs with other people. It's this all controlling dictatorial DM that seems to be nigh on mythical. It's all preference of course but in my experience I would rather have one person who clearly makes the final call in most group related activities.