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

[Micah Sweet]

GURPS is a toolkit game.

I don’t think D&D should be used as such without careful consideration; I think it causes more problems than it solves.

I disagree. I've been using D&D as a toolkit for many years, and every day just adds more tools to the box. My current game uses the Level Up rules (more or less) to run a post-apocalyptic setting about 100 years in the future of our world, set in my local area, where the campaign kicked off with the actual apocalypse. All PCs are either human or constructed (robot). There are many, many tools I'm leaving in the box for this game, any of which can easily come into play in my next campaign.

Tell me again D&D isn't a toolbox, and shouldn't be used as such.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

GURPS is a toolkit game.

I don’t think D&D should be used as such without careful consideration; I think it causes more problems than it solves.

I disagree then. Granted, D&D is a toolkit of far more limited in its scope than GURPS, but it is one nevertheless. It does not have bespoke world connected to it. Many official ones have been published over the years, and people have always been encouraged to build their own. Not every world needs to include everything. That would just be dull and repetitive.

 

[TwoSix]

I agree.

This poll asked about the DM excluding things.

G

D&D 5E (2014) Thread 'DM imposed restrictions to the game (+)'

Jan 6, 2024

As a plus thread, please don't put down, dismiss, judge, etc. other peoples' view or comments. Thank you!

From the direction this thread (https://www.enworld.org/threads/we-would-hate-a-bg3-campaign.701844/) took, I became curious about what things different a DM might modify or restrict when they run a game. I'm not talking about modifications or homebrew, but pure restrictions--NOT ALLOWED.

You can choose multiple options, and feel free to explain why you make the choices you make if you care to. If you think of a type of restriction I missed, let me know and I'll update the...

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Around 90 % of the respondents said it was ok to exklude things. What they thought was ok varied, but it still seems to me many DMs chose what to use and not.

Heck, I think it’s OK to exclude things.

It just needs to be very mindfully and cautiously, and with full player buy-in. It’s the “mindful” part a lot of setting designers skip.

 

[Hussar]

But this is just about the level of detail. D&D AC does actually provide some information how it prevents attacks from hitting, it is due some combination of armour deflection, parrying and dodging. Is this less detail than knowing that the attack was specifically dodged? Yes. Is it still "any information?" Yes it is.

And I fully admit, D&D combat is gamey as hell and rather poor simulation. But it still fulfils your criteria of proving "any information."

And of course, that is just one aspect of the game, one widely recognised to be not very simulationistic. How about skills? They still provide some information and indeed about just as much as skills in RQ do.

BTW, why did we keep getting stuck on Runequest? Did I make the mistake of bringing it up? I'll freely admit, I've never played it and know next to nothing about it other than by reputation. But, for some reason, it's become the main example. No idea why, and if it was me, I'm really sorry since I honestly cannot comment on it.

But, no, it's not "any information" in D&D since it doesn't provide any information that discounts other narratives. Why did the attack miss? You have no idea. No one has any idea. It could have beend dodged, it could have bounced off armor, the attacker could have stumbled, or magical combat pixies rose up and defended me. Any and all narrations are equally valid as far as the system is concerned, although, to be fair, typically the table is going to limit those narrations somewhat. OTOH, you can easily play D&D combat with zero narration. You don't need to narrate anything in D&D combat and it works perfectly fine.

In more sim leaning games, that's not possible. We KNOW that you dodged that attack because you succeeded on that dodge check. We KNOW that the attack bounced off because you made that Toughness check. So on and so forth. The system might not tell you in detail what happened, but, it does give you enough information that you can say X is true and Y is untrue.

Take GURPS skills. (I'm using the 4e rules here). You have a rating in a skill. So long as you roll 3d6 under that rating, you succeed. And because almost every check you make will give you a different result based on your margin of success or failure, the system itself is going to give some information as to why things happened. In D&D, because the die roll includes so many possible justifications - anything from you were hungry to the rock face collapsing - we can't actually know anything about why you failed your check. Just that you failed.

 

[Enrahim]

You don't know that though. You can't. Because, again, there are a zillion reasons.

I have a player who plays (but is on hiatus) a tiefling. Said player does not care about the hell stuff in the least. It's purely the aesthetic, and to a certain extent, the distance between the character and the rest of the world that that aesthetic induces.

They play something that feels sufficiently like a tiefling to that particular player at least. Is it a tiefling though? I would say no in the context of what started this reply chain. Can it be called a tiefling? Sure thing!

You have not just put in an assumption unsupported by what I said. You have outright ignored what I explicitly said, and which you had previously quoted and replied to.

Remember, I both said limited bright lines--so some, but not free rein to do whatever one likes indefinitely--and specifically said almost surely more than any of the players, and probably even more than the players combined. The only way that could be true is if they have that power, and the number is (for example) greater than five (presuming five players and just one allowed "bright line" for each player). In other words, my explicit words indicated that the only possibility is that they have that power. Why would you think I meant them to have no such power at all, having specifically responded to the post where I said these things?

Ah! I am so sorry! I misremembered your post when I wrote this last reply! For some reason I thought you had argued no lines was needed for this, while you indeed had argued something more fundamental was needed for this. My original "Who are in a position to not permit something?" Was meant to explore how this more fundamental mechanism would work in practice given you seemed to argue crazy stuff shouldn't be permited. (Full quote for reference, and for reminding myself)

Protecting other players from abuse is presumed by the nature of a cooperative game. I don't even consider that a "bright line"--it's literally foundational to the experience. Those who choose to undermine the foundation by permitting crazy stuff are on their own.

You know how there are "DMPCs" and "killer GMs" and certain kinds of power GMs have a bad reputation? I am of the belief that with appropriate constraints and nurturing, GMs that would otherwise have been inclined to drift in those directions could indeed be a lot of fun to play with.

The scythe cuts both ways.

Fully agreed! Which is why I find this initiative exiting! If we can find some clear guidelines or processes that adresses the concerns I pointed to while requiering opening for less GM abuse than today's predominant practice, I think that might be a huge win for the hoby, and a good first step.

Let me put it like this.

Stealing things from your parents is bad.
Listening to Nine Inch Nails while your parents are trying to relax after work is also bad.

I think it is very, very unwise to treat the first idea as being precisely the same kind of thing as the second. It turns "Do not steal" into a mere preference, rather than a basic and fundamental rule of behavior that people should follow (barring extreme extenuating circumstances etc., etc.)

Instead, "Do not steal" should be treated separately and much earlier. It is part of the bedrock foundation, something that needs to be established in order to have a family unit that functions and can support its members. After that "this is the absolutely essential bedrock of having a family" step is established, then we can set the bright lines, which are based on preference. That doesn't mean the preference-based ones should be ignored. But it properly emphasizes the difference between the two restrictions. Some things are restrictions in order to have a foundation to start from. Other things are restrictions for...call it "daily life" within that built structure. If you don't like the NIN example, replace it with something like "tracking mud all over the house" or whatever else, something that clearly causes problems, but also isn't on the same fundamental-bedrock level as "Do not steal".

Ok, I think my notion with regard to practicallity has to do with the problem that even if everyone might agree "don't steal from your family" is more fundamental than "Be considerate when parents are resting", this doesn't mean there are not families where members are stealing from each other. This agreement alone are also unlikely to deter anyone actualy prone to do such stealing.

This is my question about practicality. How to effectively deter, and what to do when these fundamentals are broken? The GM powers helps to some extent for these purposes, but are far from perfect. Replacing with something better would be great. But for instance just throwing it all overboard and trust each other to do the right thing, doesn't seem like something you would be advocating?

 

[Emerikol]

Ptolus is what, nearly a thousand pages long? Does rather prove my point I think.

I don't think so. Ptolus prepped for publication is 1000 pages but a DM could have that sort of knowledge without the level of written detail. DMs can use shorthand notes.

In something like Ironsworn, in Session 0, the group decides the Truths of the setting - a series of ten or fifteen overall themes of the setting - how heavily or sparsely populated is the area, how long have humans lived there, how common are monsters, how common is magic - that sort of thing. Pretty high altitude stuff. Once that's decided, you make characters and start play. A couple of die rolls and you have a starting settlement typically with some sort of problem. From there, everything is created by the group in play. You travel out to explore - make an Undertake a Journey roll. What did you find? Well, one of the players around the table can answer that. Once that's established, play continues. Within a handful of sessions, you have factions, plots, and all sorts of fun stuff going on.

Put it this way. We played Ironsworn for about a dozen sessions. Within that time, we established a cosmology, brought in two or three major plotlines and a half a dozen sub-plot stories; I have no idea now how many NPC's, I'd have to check my notes, half a dozen or so communities, and I'm sure I'm forgetting other stuff. It was an absolute blast. Prep? Did none. Zero. Zip. Nada. All done in play.

Six months of play? We'd have epic storylines by that point. Players would likely be on the third or fourth generation of characters. I'd actually really like to give a spin when we finish up our current D&D campaign - there's some additional books I'd love to try out. Add in some method for hexploration - there's a flower system (and that's not the right name, but, that's what comes to mind) that I've found that would be fantastic for this. Six months? Good grief, I'd have a setting with Ptolus levels of detail.

This sounds great for you. For me it wouldn't work and I wouldn't enjoy it. If I found it tolerable as a game, I'd still not want to waste valuable playing time using that approach when I can play in the mode I like.

I'm not trying to talk you out of your style of play. All power to you. If it works then it's good for you. Not everyone though enjoys making up the universe as you walk through it.

 

[FrogReaver]

I suspect that what is diegetic in TTRPG differs from what is diegetic in other forms of narrative.


Do you mean that when an actor picks up a fake gun that a set dresser put there a moment before, audience and the character the actor is playing must be able to follow that causal link? Don't they in fact have to ignore that causal link, and imagine instead a different causal link that happens only in the fiction.

It is likely a fundamental error to conflate what is happening around the table with what is diegetic in the fiction. As has been touched on in the context of the "runes" example.

IMO, in relation to simulation, diegetic would seem to entail all stimulative mechanics/processes. Those outside the purview of the simulation would not be diegetic. Those in it would be.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And I see this as just another example of intense over-extremization, of painting the other side as utterly unreasonable buttholes rather than as pretty ordinary people with pretty ordinary tastes.

Mate! You are the one who has been filling this thread with pages of hysterical rants about tyrannical straw GMs!

 

[Hussar]

I don't think so. Ptolus prepped for publication is 1000 pages but a DM could have that sort of knowledge without the level of written detail. DMs can use shorthand notes.


This sounds great for you. For me it wouldn't work and I wouldn't enjoy it. If I found it tolerable as a game, I'd still not want to waste valuable playing time using that approach when I can play in the mode I like.

I'm not trying to talk you out of your style of play. All power to you. If it works then it's good for you. Not everyone though enjoys making up the universe as you walk through it.

And that's totally fair. I 100% agree.

Follow your joy. Of course. If you enjoy that degree of world building? Knock yourself out. I'm simply offering an alternative. Do I think the alternative is better? I dunno. It's certainly a heck of a lot faster and requires a lot less work, so, yeah, I prefer it to traditional world building. Is it "better"? Meh, that's too loaded and I frankly don't care.

 

[FrogReaver]

Nothing is stopping you from reading the relevant Burning Wheel rules for free, to see whether or not they are "lying". I've also quoted them extensively upthread.

The reason I quoted the BW skill rules is because they are very simulationist as that is being characterised by at least some posters in this thread. Here's a post I made about BW, making a similar point, well over a decade ago:
And here's one making the comparison to 4e D&D, from around the same time:

I don’t think Burning Wheel is a great example because to my recollection the only mechanic I’ve seen listed problematic in it is using circles to fix the location of things like Evards Black Tower as here and now. That was a Burning Wheel example, right?

I don’t think it’s worth hashing out the likely irreconcilable differences of opinion around ‘PCs memory’ to engage in this topic when we have examples like the runes from Torchbearer 2e that don’t rely on remembering.

You jump around between different games too much to make your points to those not intimately familiar with all the ones you cite. IMO.