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

[EzekielRaiden]

You answered "no", and then proceeded to explain to me, "but actually yes".

Except that I did not. See how easy it is to riposte someone's argument when you don't actually respond to it, and instead write it off?

I explained my reasoning. It'd be nice to actually get an argument in response, rather than writing off what I said with a simplistic, inaccurate, dismissive summary.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have not read the defenses of absolute power to mean that the DM must have everything determined in advance. Just that they can.

Again, what is the need to so vociferously demand a power one does not want and will not use?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well, if a GM just says "oh there are trees and whatever you players want to make up on a whim" it won't even be a setting, much less of a game.



There is no value in a Clueless DM. In fact this ruins most games. If the players say "hey what is in the Dark Forest" and the GM is like "I don't know", that game will go nowhere fast.

Here we have another case of someone completely writing off what was said, dismissing the opposite side without even a moment's thought, by using the most extreme, ridiculous presentation possible. Yeah, it's totally fair and reasonable and respectful to write off "I think GMs should leave some room for their setting to grow over time, with things beyond the edge of the known world" into being "a Clueless DM".

This isn't productive, and it sure as hell isn't positive. @The Firebird, this is precisely the sort of thing you said wasn't being said in this thread. Is this, and my foregoing post, evidence for you?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Then why does water swirl the other way in the southern hemisphere?

It doesn't. Like that's literally a thing that doesn't happen. It's a function of the design of the toilet/bathtub/etc. Coriolis effects at that scale are so vanishingly small they simply can't be observed without carefully-constructed laboratory settings. As in, the effect of gravity alone is ten MILLION times stronger than the Coriolis effect.

It's possible you're making a joke here, I can't tell, but...yeah. The water doesn't swirl preferentially in any direction when you flush a toilet as a result of the Coriolis effect. It's a toilet-design thing.

The most noticeable Coriolis effect in everyday life is what it does to weather patterns, though most people don't realize that's why certain patterns work the way they do.

Correct. In order for Coriolis effect impacts to be noticeable on Earth, they need to be at the scale of a median-sized US state or European country to see real, detectable effects.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Errr...I think I missed something.

What did I do this time?

I was referring to the descriptions you have given, multiple times, that you have so precisely nailed down the physiological, sociopolitical, economic, geographical, and ecological characteristics of your campaign world that there literally isn't any place you have not already fully pre-defined. Many of them, as I understand it, are places the PCs have never received any information about whatsoever, but you already know every detail there is to know about them, other than perhaps individual specific names of minor government functionaries or the like.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Listen, provide soft workable alternatives and gently encourage.
i.e. Use honey

I did. More than one person, and most specifically Max, refused.

Reflect and provide examples on how allowing for player/table input has

• changed players guarded/ min-maxing ways
• made players more trusting of the GM
• allowed players to focus on roleplay and genuineness of character
• inspired more enjoyment at the table
• provided interesting material for you as GM to work with
• overall enriched the emergent storyline
• foster a system of co-operation
  (and this is not to say you cannot have all the above and not continue to have friendly banter and competition amongst players and amongst the GM and players. Ofc you can!)

@EzekielRaiden all it takes is one idea to be used, and that is a success in itself. Try not to be militant, that does not work.

Call me jaded. I don't think that will ever work. Because I tried. Repeatedly. Across many threads. Even this one! All I ever got was hostility or mockery from those who don't do this.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Do you know what your definition lacks? Anything saying that a person with unconditional power can't choose to listen to someone else, or can't discuss with someone else, or any of the other wildly incorrect statements you've been making about absolute power.

Yes, the DM's power isn't checked by anything. No that doesn't mean that he ignores the players, or doesn't discuss with the group before making a decision, or...

Absolute power does not mean what you keep saying it means. All it means is that the DM's decisions can't be countermanded by the players.

It completely does. Power with no checks gets used without checks. That's how power works.

An advisor doesn't need to have any authority at all. All it takes to be an advisor is to be in a position to give advice. That's it.

...that position IS authority!

You see that paragraph there? That's what you are doing to us. Your depiction of absolute power is a ludicrously extreme caricature to the point of being intentionally absurd. Nobody who is saying that the DM has absolute power is asking to(or doing) the things you are saying.

And again, that applies to your claims on absolute power as well.

Then show it. Prove it to me. Show me what actually stops the abuse of power.

I'll wait.

 

[pemerton]

Are your players wandering around aimlessly just occasionally poking at things but otherwise doing nothing?

Because I'm assuming that the players have goals. Maybe it's a goal they got because they bit a GM-provided hook. Maybe it's a goal they made for their group. Maybe it's a goal they wrote up in their character's background. In any of those cases, if they're ignoring those goals because they suddenly want to know why there's a really good waiter working at this one inn, they're not working on those goals, so it won't disrupt anything any further to say "I don't know."

My personal concern in these sorts of situations would be are players acting on their character's curiosity or their own? Do their actions make sense for someone who has lived in this world their entire life or are they acting like a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court? For any game I care to run that sort of Isekai vibe where players are prodding at things that should not be unusual to their characters is a bit of a nonstarter.

100% agreed on the "isekai vibe": as a GM, I don't have any interest in exhibiting my setting to the players as an object of exploration/admiration/understanding. To put it another way, the setting is a premise, not a conclusion. That doesn't mean the setting can't be a source of mystery or value - but the mystery will be one that is a mystery within the setting, not a mystery only to the Connecticut Yankee. (An exception: I have little experience GMing Pelgrane's Dying Earth RPG, but this game proceeds quite self-consciously by setting up strange places/customs to which the PCs are outsiders. That's fine, but is the basis for the ironic weirdness of The Dying Earth.)

One way to achieve the "no isekai" feel is for the players to contribute to the setting. That's something that I've taken to be pretty uncontroversial for a long time. Another way, not completely unrelated, is to use strong references/tropes in the setting that the players can identify and hook onto. The relation between the two is that, when relying on tropes/references, the players have to be able to have their input into what a trope means, or what meaning a reference carries. (Eg if the setting is Vikings, then the players as much as the GM have to be able to contribute and build on their ideas about Vikings.)

As far as goals go: I think RPGing works best when the PCs have drives or aspirations. These don't necessarily have to be well-defined goals (as in, definite projects with a clear end-state), though they can be. I think GMing is pretty key here - putting situations in front of the players that are interesting and engaging, given their PCs.

 

[The Firebird]

Again, what is the need to so vociferously demand a power one does not want and will not use?

As a player, I want the DM to have that power first and foremost because I do not want it. If I have the power to construct the world, the tension between PC and player becomes more pronounced and it harms the feeling of immersion. See here.

A thesis:

PC and player are not identical. But to the extent that I feel I as a player am inhabiting, am acting, as an individual in the world, it is better for the distinction to be as small as possible.

There is a larger distinction when player and PC knowledge differ more. E.g., I as a player know I just set the stakes for the runes, but the PC doesn't know. I as a player know the cook appeared because of a 7-9, but the PC doesn't.

Additionally: this contrast is more clearly expressed when the players rolls are determining aspects of the world (presence of cook, nature of runes) than the characters interactions with the world (arrow hits orc).

---

Cases: the wandering monster--the player's roll has no bearing on the existence of the monster, so PC/player distinction is minimal.

The player saying--"my PC says those guys use human ears". Moderate PC/player distinction. If this is done primarily for flavor it doesn't seem that bad imo, but if done often can get old. If the player introduces lore to help their PC win it becomes a hard no.

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Here we have another case of someone completely writing off what was said, dismissing the opposite side without even a moment's thought, by using the most extreme, ridiculous presentation possible. Yeah, it's totally fair and reasonable and respectful to write off "I think GMs should leave some room for their setting to grow over time, with things beyond the edge of the known world" into being "a Clueless DM".

This isn't productive, and it sure as hell isn't positive. @The Firebird, this is precisely the sort of thing you said wasn't being said in this thread. Is this, and my foregoing post, evidence for you?

I didn't think it was dismissing the opposite side without a moment's thought. It was examining an edge case to demonstrate why the DM having a more authoritative role in the fiction is important. GMless or other systems relegate some of this role to some other entity, like a deck of cards or background material. The Quiet Year, for example, examines a very specific scenario.

 

[The Firebird]

Then show it. Prove it to me. Show me what actually stops the abuse of power.

"Sorry Dave, you've put a lot of work into this setting but it's not what I'm feeling right now. I'll catch you for the next campaign"