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

[CreamCloud0]

EDIT: i take the question back.

 

[Enrahim]

That certainly was not my understanding of his work. Almost precisely the opposite.

Ok. Then that explains that.

Now back on track (railroad?). Assuming we now have a common understanding of the story of the 30th year of the development of this imagined imagined world. Is there absolute power at play here? Might a potential motivation for sharing this world be to bring the friends together having a good time - giving a feeling of belonging?

 

[Don Durito]

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.

Yeah I seem to recall this isn't the first time I've ignore listed you.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My understanding was the opposite (of the opposite). I believe the novels post-date the world creation.

I wasn't saying that the novels were created and then the world was. I'm saying that he developed the legendarium because he felt inspired by the Anglo-Saxon literature (of which he was one of the preeminent scholars of his day, and his translation was held in very high regard for many years; it's been superseded since but is still valuable in its own way). You can, for example, clearly see that he was responding to the weak writing in the prophecies of MacBeth with the Witch-King. "No man of woman born can harm MacBeth" requiring a birth by C-section from a dead woman's body? That's just unnecessary: any woman can kill MacBeth.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Ok. Then that explains that.

Now back on track (railroad?). Assuming we now have a common understanding of the story of the 30th year of the development of this imagined imagined world. Is there absolute power at play here? Might a potential motivation for sharing this world be to bring the friends together having a good time - giving a feeling of belonging?

I mean, I would argue yes, because (as said before) the GM is placing such rigid control over it. The players may embellish it. They can't really add to it, nor remove much of anything from it.

 

[Emerikol]

As I've said before, nobody is purely one type of gamer. We all switch between those three gamer types--and probably others not covered by GNS--as we need to.

My point stands given what you said. People can be something or some mix of something without knowing the technical terms. People had cancer before the term "Cancer" ever existed.

 

[Enrahim]

I mean, I would argue yes, because (as said before) the GM is placing such rigid control over it. The players may embellish it. They can't really add to it, nor remove much of anything from it.

They added a town? And the dragon was indeed on the line (just to clarify that). But fair enough, this is what I expected now. Still good to check to confirm.

And for the second question?

 

[AlViking]

Really?

When you point your gun in a video game and click the mouse to shoot it (or controller depending on the system), do bullets (or whatever) not shoot out of that gun, traveling along a path to a destination? You cannot follow the path of the bullets? You have no idea why that bad guy just fell down?

When your car strikes a something in a driving game, does damage not occur? How did your car become damaged? You don't see the car striking the obstacle and becoming damaged? It's just suddenly damaged without any explanation as to how it got damaged?

Again, you keep insisting on this idea of real world simulation. That's not the criteria. All that is required is for the simulation to provide some (any) information as to how that result occured. In video games, that's shown quite clearly in most games. You know exactly how and why your car got damaged. You can quite possibly replay a recording of your car being damaged. What damage it suffered and how that damage models reality is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you are told by the system some information about how that damage occured.

Unlike something like D&D where it's entirely a black box. All that D&D tells you is the result. It would be like a video game where your car suddenly loses a tire. No explanation. No reason is given. Your car just loses a tire. A perfect simulation of driving skill and luck I suppose?

Would you consider a driving game where your tire falls off without any explanation to be a simulation? If not, why would you consider an RPG where you fall down without any explanation to be a simulation?

No bullet flies out of a gun because there is no bullet. You point and click and depending on the game some calculations are made. A lot of games use hitscan where they don't calculate wind or bullet drop. The bullet also hits immediately after you click to fire, many base it on percentage chance to hit. Some do actual ballistics calculations but again there's no actual bullet because its a game. That bullet? You're adding that bit of narrative because you know how it works in real life.

Cars and driving? The responses may give you the feel of driving a car and they can get pretty detailed. But they don't model the engine, most barely model the damage to the car in any realistic fashion. They abstract out a great deal and only care about whether it feels like you're driving.

Ahh. This would explain why you failed to understand the blog. That is not the definition of diegetic. Or, rather, that's only half the definition. It also must exist for the audience as well. IOW, how can falling exist for the player if the player has no idea what caused the character to fall? Sure, again, you can backfill the explanation after the fact, but, that's not diegetic. That's just post hoc justification.

So you have a definition of diegetic that Merriam-Webster dictionary doesn't know about? Where did you get that from? Why do you assume anyone else would use that definition. What caused the fall? Your roll was under the target number that indicated success. Anything else you add, whether from a book, the top of your head, a dartboard is just fluff added after the fact.

 

[AlViking]

Allowing the attemp does not mean they get to roll. If a player wanted his PC to attempt to leap the Grand Canyon with a running start, I'd let him make that attempt. Any roll would be geared towards possible survival from the failed attempt, though. There would be no jump check, because the outcome isn't in doubt.

If they said they were going to jump the Grand Canyon I would ask them if they really wanted to commit suicide because they aren't going to survive the fall to the bottom. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the player who says they're going to lasso the dragon flying overhead because it should be obvious that there's zero chance of success. It's the character with a belt of ogre strength saying he's going to pick up a building. The monk that thinks that if someone casts haste on him while he's wearing boots of speed that he can run so fast that he'll turn back time.

The times I've said no it's because the actions are not possible according to the rules of the game. I'll try to figure out what they're trying to accomplish and we'll see if there's something that can be done but sometimes people want to do things that aren't even close to what the rules would allow. In those cases I say no. I guess someone could try to convince Orcus to become a gardener if they want to waste their time and the time of the fellow players, but I won't bother wasting much time because it's not going to work.

 

[AlViking]

this is all 1864 pages of this thread condensed in to a single sentence.

So anyone that says "I played it, I didn't like it" can just be dismissed by "You played it wrong"? Because that's the answer to everything. I've read up on and watched a couple hours of streams, had numerous discussions around narrative games. I've never had the opportunity to play DW, but I can still form an opinion that it's not for me. All we ever get is "If you really understood it you'd like it as much as I do". It's BS.

We all have preferences, things we like and don't like. Why can't people just accept that?