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

[EzekielRaiden]

Perhaps, but the effect was first noticed on cruise liners crossing the equator which would have been using the same equipment all along, so ???

Er...no. The effect was first discussed in relation to artillery trajectories by Italian scientists Giovanni Batista Riccioli and Francesco Maria Grimaldi in the mid-1600s. It, or rather its absence (because they didn't detect it!) was originally used as an argument against the heliocentric model, because they believed a spinning Earth should produce a visible deflection (an artillery shell fired north should deflect east; no meaningful deflection was discovered). It was only given a name iafter 1835 when Gaspar-Gustave de Coriolis published an energy analysis of devices containing large rotating parts (e.g. waterwheels), and noted what he called the "compound centrifugal force". Over the next century, it became known first as the "acceleration of Coriolis" and then, by the early 20th century, the "Coriolis force" (or "Coriolis effect" for the observable phenomena caused by this effect). Prior to Coriolis' work, both Euler and Laplace had previously done the mathematical legwork to derive the correct formulae, but they're both already super famous for a bazillion other things as it is, so it's probably for the best that we named it after Coriolis instead.

I'm not sure where you heard this cruise-liners theory, but as far as I can tell it has no actual evidence for it. You can do the calculation yourself (not that I expect you to do so), and you'll find that the magnitude of the Coriolis force affecting the water in a basin or toilet bowl is so vanishingly small, it cannot meaningfully affect the direction the water takes.

Should you want verification, both Scientific American and Snopes.com have articles discussing how the Coriolis force has no (meaningful) effect on the rotation of vortices in bathtubs or toilets.

 

[pemerton]

The runes example, notably, was not.

I don't think that's actually clear, is it? I mean, I don't remember how the dice pool was put together, and whether it included the player suggesting his PC might remember these or similar runes. I posted the PC sheet upthread: D&D General - [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting. And in that same post I posted this:

Does this character know about dungeon runes? Either in general, or what these particular runes are likely to say? He's a Solitary Traveller, and a Cunning Expert. In a game that is deliberately playing on classic D&D tropes, Cunning includes the thief's traditional ability to deal with traps and read strange writings. As per the MHRP rules (p OM96),

Experts are a cut above the rest, having had extensive experience and practice using skills in this field. If you’re an Expert, you know the theory and application of the skill set, probably have contacts in the field of study, and can recognize others with this level of training just by observation.​

Just as the AW player gets to express their character's familiarity with the slave traders - they use human ears for barter - so the Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy player gets to express his character's familiarity with the sorts of strange runes that are found in dungeons inhabited by (inter alia) Crypt Things.

It's not identical - MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic and AW are different games, that use different techniques for PC build, for framing, for declaring actions, and for resolving those declared actions. But taking the AW notion of "crossing the line" and just declaring that the runes example does so is (in my view) too simplistic.

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.

That last one in particular seems to frame the game as one of solving the mystery.

 

[clearstream]

No. It is that all of these things presume the GM bringing a world that nailed down before players can even have a chance to speak about it. "My way or the highway" at the setting level, since that is naturally the first (or possibly second) level at which the players can encounter it.

It isn't just "agree to play a game where I'm running <SYSTEM>". It's "agree to play a game where I'm running <SYSTEM> with a world I have completely predefined such that you have no choices except the ones I permit you."

I'm envisioning that someone (maybe GM, maybe someone else, maybe multiple people) propose a game, which may come with a world attached.

"Hey, I'd like to run some RuneQuest, set in Glorantha. Who else is interested?"
"I'm curious about Stonetop, anyone else want to try it? Who can MC?"
"I've been doing some homebrew and have something I think you'll like. Who wants to try a short campaign?"

What you describe skirts

"You four, sit down. You're playing in my homebrew world. Put your wrists through the manacles and click them tight!"

Exaggerated for the sake of emphasis; but... does anyone really set up their play in a way that skips player acceptance of imagined world (including acceptance of worlds that tieflings could/could-not make sense in.) How do they do that?

 

[CreamCloud0]

What is the isekai vibe?

following the discussion back a few responses to how it was originally introduced and used it seems to be being used to refer to when the players/characters are oddly ignorant and/or curious towards things that ought to be ordinary and commonplace to them in the setting had they actually grown up there like their backgrounds typically assume, hence the comparison to isekai where the main character is literally transplanted from a whole other setting with different rules and norms.

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.

 

[pemerton]

Should you want verification, both Scientific American and Snopes.com have articles discussing how the Coriolis force has no (meaningful) effect on the rotation of vortices in bathtubs or toilets.

I've seen charlatans/performers at the equator "demonstrate" the Coriolis effect, with the swirl of water in their pans "changing" as they step north or south of the equator.

It's a fun trick. It's not science, though - it's stage magic.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm envisioning that someone (maybe GM, maybe someone else, maybe multiple people) propose a game, which may come with a world attached.

"Hey, I'd like to run some RuneQuest, set in Glorantha. Who else is interested?"
"I'm curious about Stonetop, anyone else want to try it? Who can MC?"
"I've been doing some homebrew and have something I think you'll like. Who wants to try a short campaign?"

What you describe skirts

"You four, sit down. You're playing in my homebrew world. Put your wrists through the manacles and click them tight!"

Exaggerated for the sake of emphasis; but... does anyone really set up their play in a way that skips player acceptance of imagined world (including acceptance of worlds that tieflings could/could-not make sense in.) How do they do that?

That is sure as hell the sentiment I have gotten from the vast majority of people promoting the "traditional GM" approach.

"You WILL adventure in the world I've provided to you. Don't like it? Tough, find a new table."

 

[Enrahim]

"Absolute power" is not required for the kinds of things brought up in this thread. <snip>

I think this is the claim that is being disputed. And further, even if not required, it might still be desireable. Even to the point of insistence.

There have been numerous attempts in this thread to propose alternatives the way you list earlier in your post here. All of them have been rejected as they have been found to be problematic in terms of some desired feature of their play experience.

Final decission power might for instance produce the same effective in fiction result. But any process making the arangement different in a way that deviates from absolute power tend to put a set of formal functons/responsibilities onto the players that affect the feel of the activity. And if what is central to what is being sought in this activity is this feel, then the fact that it produces identical in fiction results are at best secondary.

Other proposed changes have to a larger extent tried to preserve the feel, but those have been found to affect the fiction - typically by rules-limiting potential outcomes.

 

[Maggan]

"You WILL adventure in the world I've provided to you. Don't like it? Tough, find a new table."

If you want to play a tiefling, and will not budge on that, and the DM says "no tieflings" and won't budge on that, what does your group do? Cancel the game for everyone because you can't play a tieflling or have the DM run a game for the rest of the players who are okay not playing a tiefling? Or do you force the DM to include tieflings against her will, with the support of the rest of the players?

 

[Enrahim]

That is sure as hell the sentiment I have gotten from the vast majority of people promoting the "traditional GM" approach.

"You WILL adventure in the world I've provided to you. Don't like it? Tough, find a new table."

Imagine you feel like running Dungeon World. You ask your friend if they are interested to play. Your friend say they do not feel like that right now. You then find a group of people that actually are interested in playing Dungeon World. Would starting a campaign with them feel like you are telling your friend "Tough, find a new table."?

I think these are the kind of human interactions typically involved when people are describing how they as GM "decide" what to play.

The alternative that is being pushed back against is something along the line of: You feel like playing Dungeon World. Your friend say that they dont really feel it right now, and rather want to play D&D. You promptly start searching for a group to play D&D with, as you feel obligated to honor the (potential) player's wishes.

The third and all to common variant: You ask your friend if they want to play Dungeon World. Your friend tell you they don't feel it right now. You shelve the plans to run game for now, spending your time watching movies and playing computer games instead. Is this also telling your friend "Tough, find a new table"?

 

[Enrahim]

It has seemed to me to be quite clearly implied or required by the other things already said many times over (e.g. the "you just HAVE to trust your GM that this faction which explicitly has doctrines that would support your cause is, for reasons no one will explain and which you cannot figure out yourself, completely opposed to helping you"), but perhaps I am mistaken on that front.

I do not see the connection between your example and the concept of fleshing out the entire world in absolute detail?