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

[pemerton]

Would you like me to start pointing it out every time people use openly disparaging, mocking terms for other people's preferences? Because that's what you just did here. I do not want "reality-altering powers". That's never what I've wanted, and I've specifically and explicitly rejected that numerous times in this thread alone. Why are you comfortable mocking my preferences with phrases like "reality-altering powers", but get upset when others use terms they consider accurate, if harsh, for your own?

The language of "reality altering", "quantum" etc to me just signals a failure to recognise that RPGing can take forms beyond one fairly narrow playstyle based around the players learning from the GM about the setting and situations the GM has come up with.

What "agency" means at a game table is inherently and significantly different from what it means for me as a human being.

This I don't really agree with. Setting aside determinism issues, there are parts of my life where I exercise agency and parts where I don't. Eg I chose my profession - an exercise of agency - but now, at my age and given my experience, am pretty much locked-in - I no longer really have agency over what my profession will be. Within my job, I exercise agency - eg choosing what to research and write on - but also find myself having to do things I wouldn't do if I could choose - I have little agency in respect of those things.

Choosing to play a game is an exercise of agency. In playing the game, I want to enjoy agential experiences. I get enough non-agential experience in other parts of my life. If someone's pitch of a game to me is Just like the rest of your life, in this game you will often find yourself lacking agency, dictated to by circumstances established by other, etc my response is "No thanks!"

 

[The Firebird]

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.)

Interestingly, I can't stand the isekai vibe as a player. I don't like it because it doesn't feel grounded, it doesn't feel like a lived-in world, in the way I want. Because that sort of thing doesn't happen in the real world.

But I view the fixed world approach as the right way to address it. I see why you can get it with a fixed world if the GM is withholding information. But skilled GMs will provide you with enough. Players contributing to the worldbuilding doesn't do it for me, because every time I contribute as a player I am pulled out of character.

 

[pemerton]

I see why you can get it with a fixed world if the GM is withholding information. But skilled GMs will provide you with enough. Players contributing to the worldbuilding doesn't do it for me, because every time I contribute as a player I am pulled out of character.

I can very easily imagine memories without being pulled out of character. To me that is (part of) playing my character.

Whereas having someone else tell me what I think, remember, expect etc is utterly unimmersive.

 

[The Firebird]

I can very easily imagine memories without being pulled out of character. To me that is (part of) playing my character.

You'll note my post did not say "memories".

 

[Maxperson]

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

You're making it sound like that's only how it is used, instead how it works in the overwhelming majority of real life games which is very rarely when all the players are against something.

...that position IS authority!

Over who? The king? Nope. Anyone else? Nope. He can't go to the guards and make them or anyone else do anything if he's merely someone who gives advice to the king.

You are conflating influence with authority and those are two very different things. A cop has the authority to pull me over and make me show my license to him. My wife doesn't, but she has a hell of a lot more influence over me than any cop does.

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

I'll wait.

I've shown it to you repeatedly. And that's the social contract which is far stronger than any rule ever will be.

 

[Maxperson]

Would you like me to start pointing it out every time people use openly disparaging, mocking terms for other people's preferences? Because that's what you just did here. I do not want "reality-altering powers". That's never what I've wanted, and I've specifically and explicitly rejected that numerous times in this thread alone. Why are you comfortable mocking my preferences with phrases like "reality-altering powers", but get upset when others use terms they consider accurate, if harsh, for your own?

More importantly, games already aren't the real world. Something we've already discussed. Repeatedly. What "agency" means at a game table is inherently and significantly different from what it means for me as a human being.

I mean, for God's sake, we literally do have people here on Earth who think nobody actually has any agency at all. Superdeterminism and all that.

Agency is the the player's ability to decide what his character says and attempts to do. Prep doesn't change that. Nor do folks on Earth who want to absolve themselves of responsibility for their actions through a belief in Superdeterminism.

 

[Maxperson]

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

Again, the game gives it whether you want it or not. Also, sometimes, in rare circumstances, it does need to be used.

 

[pemerton]

You'll note my post did not say "memories".

You referred to information. But most of a PC's information about place, history, culture, geography etc will take the form of memories.

 

[The Firebird]

You referred to information. But most of a PC's information about place, history, culture, geography etc will take the form of memories.

The runes example, notably, was not.

You can cast almost anything as a memory. But the key element for me was not whether or not it is a memory. It has to do with the level of distance from the character. Remembering their village is one thing. Remembering that they overheard the prime minister is the secret power behind the throne or that the key to King Solomon's Mine is hidden beneath the throne are a bit different.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm a player; and while my character might be the one fielding the questions, for efficiency's sake it'll be the DM giving the answers. (one of the mage PCs who decipered and translated the manual was mine)

Heh, not in my game. If you want your character to know how the hyperdrive actually works to the point you're willing to have your character read a ginormous manual, then you get to decide the physics.