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

[The Firebird]

Digging out a log, in this case, it was the NPC's sister, another noble lady, an orchard in the NPC's lands and a firefly festival in a village on the NPC's land. The grievance (as we-as-real-people discovered together) was around courtly woo-ing, accusations of unfaithfulness, wounded honour and so on, all very chaste and Arthurian. In no way did my PC have a hand in the creation of the orchard or the festival, but they would have been familiar with them due to visiting the location before. Now, all this could have been created before hand, it just happened that it hadn't been.

For me this approaches the line, but I don't think it crosses it. I'd prefer for the GM to have many of these details fixed. For example, if they had written "the firefly festival occurs at this time and involves this sort of activity". Then the player could say "maybe our characters fought sometime we were in town?" and the GM would say "how about the firefly festival...this involves...".

That seems better to me than the player declaring the festival's existence and the GM modifying the world to accommodate it.

But it wouldn't be a red flag and I'd be ok playing in a game with that level of player control.

 

[AlViking]

It may be. But it’s also the extreme. People will have different thresholds of what is tolerable before we get to the extreme where we might all agree there’s a problem.

Like, for me, I expect my tolerance for the amount of GM authority would be exceeded way before yours. Now, my threshold for this will differ depending on the kind of game being played, but still.

Like I said earlier in the thread… I’m far less concerned with these mythical bag GMs than I am instances of bad GMing. Which I’d probably clarify as nit necessarily bad so much as not to my taste.



So what I’d like to say is that I don’t like the heavy GM authority of trad gaming because it makes me feel like I’m being railroaded. But I’m not saying that anyone else’s game is objectively worse because of this.

I would imagine that the above would typically get a reaction out of you, and not be accepted as just an opinion.

One of the reasons I run the games the way I do is so that the players don't feel like they're being railroaded. I resolve each action as limited to the direct result because if I start having add-on impact that would feel like I was directing play.

While I run a sandbox style campaign with plenty of options (and the players can always suggest a direction), I will of course always create the scenarios and world so I have a great deal of influence. I do my best to limit that influence once we're in session by taking a referee stance. By doing so I do the best I can to hand the reigns of the campaign direction to the players, even if they don't get to design the roads. Even with most published modules there's a significant difference between a linear campaign like most modules are and a railroad.

 

[Enrahim]

So what I’d like to say is that I don’t like the heavy GM authority of trad gaming because it makes me feel like I’m being railroaded. But I’m not saying that anyone else’s game is objectively worse because of this.

I would imagine that the above would typically get a reaction out of you, and not be accepted as just an opinion.

This analogy is not perfect. It is good in that we have in both cases a feel that we can question the "validity of" (Are you really railroaded? Do you really have reality bending powers?) The problem I see is that the first uses a relatively well defined term that can allow the question to gain traction. The second is less established, and hence it might be possible to make it a tauntology by defining reality bending powers as whatever the game invoking this feeling does.

 

[Gimby]

For me this approaches the line, but I don't think it crosses it. I'd prefer for the GM to have many of these details fixed. For example, if they had written "the firefly festival occurs at this time and involves this sort of activity". Then the player could say "maybe our characters fought sometime we were in town?" and the GM would say "how about the firefly festival...this involves...".

That seems better to me than the player declaring the festival's existence and the GM modifying the world to accommodate it.

But it wouldn't be a red flag and I'd be ok playing in a game with that level of player control.

Sure, that makes sense.

In this case, the village was ruined and all the relevant NPCs were dead or gone, so it's not the kind of thing the GM had prepared, nor were the exact details of what happened likely to be relevant in the future so it largely boiled down to colour.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It may be. But it’s also the extreme. People will have different thresholds of what is tolerable before we get to the extreme where we might all agree there’s a problem.

Like, for me, I expect my tolerance for the amount of GM authority would be exceeded way before yours. Now, my threshold for this will differ depending on the kind of game being played, but still.

Like I said earlier in the thread… I’m far less concerned with these mythical bag GMs than I am instances of bad GMing. Which I’d probably clarify as nit necessarily bad so much as not to my taste.



So what I’d like to say is that I don’t like the heavy GM authority of trad gaming because it makes me feel like I’m being railroaded. But I’m not saying that anyone else’s game is objectively worse because of this.

I would imagine that the above would typically get a reaction out of you, and not be accepted as just an opinion.

No, that's an acceptable opinion with which I happen to disagree. Just like mine is for you, I'd wager.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'd probably say it's one word, "immersiveness", attempting to encapsulate 2 related but distinct phenomena.

Sure.

But I do disagree in that I think you can absolutely both have an inhabitation of the character and subconsciously author at the same time. Like, I can imagine myself in character walking into a bar, and start describing what my character is seeing without any sense of "trying to author". The sensory impression is simply there in my head, just like the sensory impression from my current surroundings (this laptop screen, right now).

To me what you describe here is normal authoring.

I think the act of authoring can be immersive. I think some can switch between authoring and thinking in character seamlessly.

I’m not sure about the subconscious playing any part here. You consciously chose to author X facts about your character.

Although it's quite possible this is like aphantasia, and everyone has different capacities for what can they subconsciously create as imagery.

Yea I get virtually no imagery.

 

[FrogReaver]

In this case, it was a grievance against my character from the NPC. I'd agree that collaboration was needed, and we did, just during the course of play rather than outside it.

Sure. I’m not as particular on when it occurs.

I'd agree on orthogonal - it's neither required nor does it necessarily prevent immersion. I'd also agree it was very close to theatre style improv and that that experience can be very immersive. And that not everyone will find it immersive.

I think we have to be careful here. Immersive how? If immersive is ‘thinking as my character’ then authoring stuff is clearly something other than thinking as your character. In that sense it prevents it, but it doesn’t necessarily lessen the experience for the moment after when you are thinking as your character. Though for some it may not be easy to change modes.

To give another example where I've found delegated authoring authority immersive, I was in a Ravnica game, playing an Azorius guildmember. The GM and I agreed that I, as the player, could make up laws and regulations to represent my character's experience with the city's legal and administrative system - these were most often a bit ridiculous to represent the odd bureaucracy of the setting. The point being that I could come up with plausible sounding legal jargon as a player without having to continually run it past the GM in a way that would have been disruptive to the overall flow of the game. I certainly accept that it's not something everyone would enjoy, but it fit with the tone of the game (5e, in this case, though again the actual impact was fairly system agnostic)

Sure in some cases pre approval of everything may be worse than some player authoring for thinking as your character immeresiveness. But ideally it’s pre approved and then I spend the whole time thinking as my character. I think it can interfere with immeresivenss when not pitted against constantly checking with the dm, at least for many people.

 

[Maxperson]

It may be. But it’s also the extreme. People will have different thresholds of what is tolerable before we get to the extreme where we might all agree there’s a problem.

Like, for me, I expect my tolerance for the amount of GM authority would be exceeded way before yours. Now, my threshold for this will differ depending on the kind of game being played, but still.

Like I said earlier in the thread… I’m far less concerned with these mythical bag GMs than I am instances of bad GMing. Which I’d probably clarify as nit necessarily bad so much as not to my taste.

For sure. My feeling, though, is that if you are hitting your personal threshold and we haven't gotten to a bad extreme, then you should find a game where your threshold isn't being exceeded.

I also think that some instances of bad DMing are bad and not just a matter of taste. However, since those are simply instances of a bad decision instead of a bad DM, my experience is that the DM will try to make it right somehow, which mitigates the negative aspects of the experience quite a bit.

 

[Enrahim]

I already tried that.

Guess how much I get to play?

Guess how much joy of playing I get out of running?

I'll give you a hint. The answer to both of those questions is a nonpositive, nonnegative integer.

This is like saying, "If you want to feel the joy of a great massage, become a masseuse." No! Being a masseuse has nothing to do with getting a massage! The response is a complete non sequitur!

Strange? None of your players have taken you up on your offer to mentor them? My best game experience as a player was with one of my former players doing their first shot at DMing.

Given it is a sellers market it shouldn't be that hard to find a group with some promising aprentice candidates?

If you can't find a good GM for you, and you have become tired of GMing yourself, be the change and make a good GM for you!

 

[TwoSix]

I’m not sure about the subconscious playing any part here. You consciously chose to author X facts about your character.

I'm talking more about sensory information for this use case. Like, when I walk into a bar, on my left I see a middle-aged man, early 30s in appearance, half-elven ears, wearing a red and black checkered tunic, with a thick brown beard and thinning hair on top, holding a mostly empty glass mug of ale.

Typing that up took me a minute, but I'm literally just describing the picture in my head when I thought "I walk into a bar".