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

[Lanefan]

If nobody remembers well enough to contradict what’s happening now, than what happened a year ago isn’t really relevant.

Well, to me it is. Just because something isn't remembered doesn't mean it never happened.

 

[Lanefan]

To be fair I've been reading a lot of the defences of the traditional GM role in this thread and thinking the whole time "you are writing as if players are interchangeable widgets"

Their characters are pretty much interchangeable widgets. The players, not so much.

 

[Lanefan]

The player didn't say "Gee, I sure wish these runes were a map showing the way out". Here's what actually happened:

...As they wandered the dungeon looking for a way out, I described them coming into a large room with weird runes/carvings on the wall. One of the players (as his PC) guessed that these carvings might show a way out of the dungeon, and made a check to reduce/eliminate the complication. The check succeeded, and this established that his guess was correct....

See, to me the only functional difference between the first bolded piece and the second is that the second only came true after a successful die roll.

The player could have used, in character, the first wording to the same effect. In character as Aloysius: "Gee, I sure wish these runes were a map showing the way out. Hey, maybe that's exactly what they are!" should be enough to prompt such a roll, hm?

 

[Don Durito]

Their characters are pretty much interchangeable widgets. The players, not so much.

If whether you are willing to make an accommodation for the player is not dependant on who the player is and the nature of your relationship with them, then at least for the purposes of the discussion here, they are interchangeable widgets.

 

[Lanefan]

Really? The rope breaking or the cliff face crumbling is due to my skill? That's an interesting take. See, you've added in all this stuff that ignores the die roll. If the character's bonus was high enough to climb without a roll, then, sure, I'd buy that it was purely skill and strength. Fair enough. But, it's not. There's that pesky d20 roll in there that is not tied in any shape to skill or strength. And the d20 roll is not tied to anything. We always roll a d20. The variability is always the same, no matter what.

Sometimes even the greatest of skill can't overcome sheer bad luck, and bad luck gets lumped in as one more factor to consider for narration of the skill-check roll.

You could be an expert climber but by sheer bad luck your rope finds that one sharp bit of flint on the whole cliff face that you didn't realize was there, and gets frayed apart just when you need it most. Or you happen to put your entire weight on the only loose rock around, a rock that didn't seem loose when you tested it. Etc.

Most of the time - maybe even almost all the time - you'll get up that cliff no problem. But this time, your luck says 'no'.

 

[Lanefan]

If whether you are willing to make an accommodation for the player is not dependant on who the player is and the nature of your relationship with them, then at least for the purposes of the discussion here, they are interchangeable widgets.

So you're saying I'm supposed to play favourites among the players? Accommodate for one but not for another?

'Cause that's how this reads.

 

[Hussar]

That is you could have a game using the rules of D&D that is not feeling like a simulation at all. And you could have a game using the rules of D&D that feels like a heavy simulation. It depends heavily on what the DM is doing.

So, by this definition, simulation has nothing to do with the system. It's mostly due to the person running that system? Is that a fair approximation?

Note, I'm sorry, but, I don't know what a "one word each game" is.

But, yeah, that's why I'm not going to agree here. If being simulationist has nothing to do with the system and is solely the realm of the person running the game, then years of criticising 4e as anti-sim just went down in flames. I was told over and over again that 4e wasn't really D&D because it doesn't fit the simulationist model. But, if, as you say, sim is only whatever the DM does, then, well, any system is sim.

I can play Dread as a heavy sim game. After all, all it takes to run a sim game is choosing the right post hoc justifications after the result is known. That's easy. The "right" post hoc justifications are not only the sole purview of the DM, but, the players are expected to accept any justification without contradiction, since it's solely the DM's role to provide those justifications.

You can see why I'm thinking that this is a load of nothingburger. It's meaningless. It's basically saying, "Sim is anything I like. If I don't like it, then it's not sim, since the DM is not providing appropriate post hoc justifications."

 

[Hussar]

That is I really cannot see how your proposed classification provide anything practically useful to the discussion?

Sorry, but going to separate this one out.

Where it's useful is in actually creating a taxonomy for discussing a game. If a DM says, "I'm running a heavily sim based game where the logic of the setting is key and mechanics are as diegetic as possible" and then pulls out D&D, then the DM is lying. He's lying to himself and he's lying to his players. Because the mechanics of D&D are very much not diegetic and the system provides nothing for simulation.

It's no different from me pulling out FATE and claiming that I'm going to run a really heavy sim game. I would think that most people would be giving me a lot of side eye for that.

 

[Hussar]

Sometimes even the greatest of skill can't overcome sheer bad luck, and bad luck gets lumped in as one more factor to consider for narration of the skill-check roll.

You could be an expert climber but by sheer bad luck your rope finds that one sharp bit of flint on the whole cliff face that you didn't realize was there, and gets frayed apart just when you need it most. Or you happen to put your entire weight on the only loose rock around, a rock that didn't seem loose when you tested it. Etc.

Most of the time - maybe even almost all the time - you'll get up that cliff no problem. But this time, your luck says 'no'.

I agree. I really do. The mechanics are perfectly functional and fine. I use them all the time. But, the problem is, we're trying to claim that the mechanics are simulationist. That's the problem. Did you fall because your skill was insufficient? Was it just bad luck? Did you fall because you ate the last piece of pizza and the DM is annoyed with you? What actually happened?

D&D doesn't actually answer any of that. It gives you ZERO guidance as to why you fell. All you know is that you fell.

The mechanics themselves are perfectly fine. It's the claim that these are simulating anything that I'm arguing against.

 

[Don Durito]

So you're saying I'm supposed to play favourites among the players? Accommodate for one but not for another?

'Cause that's how this reads.

Only if you treat the context of the game as an interchangeable slot to put the widget in.

Not everyone is running campaigns with 20 year established histories. If for example you are putting together a campaign world for your friends to game in, it would seem to make some sense to me to consider what sort of characters they like to play.

If after 10 years of developing that world you are looking for a new player and they insist they will only play if they can make a character that doesn't fit the world you and your friends have spent 10 years developing then I think there's little downside for anyone to saying no.

It wouldn't make much sense (I think) to play a Tieflng in Glorantha but at some point someone thought it was fine to allow someone to play a duck.