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

In other, blunter, words: you want me-as-DM to leave blank areas on the map (which by itself is great advice) so you-as-player can lobby to slide in things that wouldn't otherwise be in the game. That's...something not good.
Why?

I have genuinely no idea why you think this is "something not good".

You act like anyone who speaks up for their interests is somehow a subversive saboteur. Why? Isn't that exactly as antagonistic as acting like a GM who has preferences about their world is a vicious tyrant?

The setting as it is works just fine for the rest of us, why should it suddenly have to change just to support one player?

Never mind that in the specific case of bringing in a heretofore unknown PC species, if that species is thenceforth to be playable by anyone I then have to do a whole lot of work incorporating it into my rules. And if it's a unique one-off character I don't have to do all that work; but the player's hosed when it dies.
You basically ignored every single part of the purely hypothetical thing I was constructing, so I'm not really sure why I shouldn't do the same to you. It's really quite annoying to do that, I'll note. It makes it sound like you have no interest in actually discussing things, and instead just want to loudly berate me for having tastes and preferences you don't share.
 

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Sure.

But in ascending to this higher tier of understanding, a different set of rules now applies, ones that were irrelevant or inapplicable before--a new rendering of the highest-tier abstractions. In any tier, the GM must play fair. That doesn't mean they need to play kindly or coddlingly or positively--but there needs to be restraint of some kind, or it simply collapses into arbitrary action. You can quite easily have a bloody PC-abattoir of a campaign, a grimdark "meditation" on how everyone always sucks all the time forever, a one-mistake-and-you-die two-mistakes-and-you-suffer-fates-worse-than-death, or whatever else in your campaign. But if you as GM don't have some kind of limitation under the maximally-abstract umbrella of "playing fair", you've broken something terribly important.

When one ascends from "play only what is predetermined" to "break from what is predetermined when needed", the new restraint that applies is some variation of, "But only do so when you make it legitimately possible for the players to know." That doesn't mean you have to tell them right away. It doesn't mean you have to "tell" them at all. But they need to have a true, legitimate, fair shot at actually discovering how/why/what/etc. Without that limitation, you just have the GM doing whatever, whenever, because you've created an exception without closure.

And I really do mean "ascending" here. One lays down a basis of thought and explores its space, and then ascends past the bad parts of the old limitations by understanding that there may be a more nuanced, better-fitting limitation which evades places where the old limitation went astray. But there are some limitations induced purely by the medium--and the fact that the GM is the sole source of information is why many of those limitations apply.
I'm really not entirely sure what you mean here.
 

But whatever number rolled on the dice (possibly not including 1) you can succeed at with sufficient skill. DC 15? Roll a 2? A character with a skill of +15 succeeds anyway.

To quote Gary Player: "The more I work and practice the luckier I seem to get".
Yup, in that case, you can say that it was skill that granted success. Absolutely. Nice corner case where the mechanics do actually tell us something about why you succeeded. Of course, in that case, we also don't bother with any sort of checks since it's automatically a success - which kinda bypasses the mechanics entirely. So, suddenly, there's no possible chance of variation of my skills. I am never hungry, or distracted, and the rock never cuts the rope, all because my skill is so great that it is impossible to fail.

So, since the die roll actually doesn't have anything to do with the skill of the character, what does the die roll actually represent?
 

It's not relevant whether I am connected in some way. It's a fact that I am not making those decisions. They are. They make more decisions than I do.

As for whether they have information about what lies in what direction. That's on the players and their decisions. If they don't make decisions designed to get information, then sometimes they won't have any.
Really? You don't narrate scenes unless the players specifically tell you that they are looking? They just wander around completely blindly until they ask to be allowed to see something?
 




What I don't understand is how these are simulations in any manner that is more particular than just playing a RPG.

I mean, when I play/GM Burning Wheel there is travel, life, negotiation, exploration etc. Likewise when I GM MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic.

But upthread I seemed to be told that my play is not simulationist. Why is it not?
Because "simulationist" refers to your purpose of the activity. You do indeed simulate something, but that is not the purpose of that activity. As such you are appear to be willing to make decissions that might be problematic in terms of what you are trying to simulate, if it serves this primary purpose.
 

Given your description? I had assumed that was the character-role assigned to the player (with or without that player's knowledge.)
Ok. So let me clarify. The player decided that as the alternative of thiefling was not on the table, they rather wanted to make a new human fighter character. This using the normal rules of the game with no extra limitations from the DM in terms of mechanics. The player then decided to go treasure hunting. The player actions, prepared content and rules resolution over several sessions of play put the character in posession of significant funds. The player then decided to put these funds toward establishing a new town. Having accomplished this the player decided to seek out the legendary dragon that had been mentioned as part of some random lore dump far earlier in the campaign. They succeeded in finding the dragon, but the stats of this important entity (established years ago) alongside the rules of the game established the character's heroic demise.

I find spelling this out to border on writing the infamous "what is roleplaying games" found at the start of every "stand alone" rpg. I really did not expect that would be neccessary to do to someone with more than 26700 reaction score on an RPG forum. If this is the kind of misreading that has prompted some of your previous replies, then I really can understand how that can cause some major confusion.
 

Reading the room.

And how do you know if the group want's that or not. By reading the room!

(Also why do people always treat the players as one mind with several bodies. It's not group dependant it's player dependent - which is why you really need to read the room).

I can't think why you would think that.

Because I assumed you wouldn’t contradict yourself. Maybe I was being too kind there.

Either you leave open the case that some rooms may desire always adhering to prep, which directly contradicts your juxtaposition of ‘no, sometimes you have to read the room as implicitly against always adhering to prep (thus the no at the start).

It’s not complicated.
 

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