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

[TwoSix]

To me it is far more verisimilitudious that way. D&D classes are weirdly specific packages of capabilities. To me that makes more sense if there is some metaphysical or cultural reason for this. Like why do all wizards cast spells in the same way? Because they're part of the same arcane tradition based on same metaphysics. Why do all Four Elements monks fight in the same way? Because they're practitioners of the same martial arts school. Etc etc. You don't need to be super specific wit this, and with non-magical classes it certainly is a bit looser, but the general principle applies.

It's interesting in how we see the same problem but chose different ways to address it.

To me, the idea that the exact same ability progression would be seen across tens of thousands of individuals is extremely damaging to verisimilitude. And I can't see a logical reason that a simple cultural or educational set of practices could produce that level of conformity.

As such, there are only three ways I can create verisimilitude for myself while still maintaining a class structure for gameplay.

1) Class as metagame construct. Class is a gamist PC building tool. There may be some correlations between a metagame class and an in-fiction identification, but no strict alignment.

2) A large number (100+) of loosely connected smaller classes. Closer to WHRP careers than D&D full progression classes.

3) Class as supernatural diegetic entity, enforced by supernatural laws.

 

[Enrahim]

I can't speak for @EzekielRaiden, but for me, it would depend on how much leeway I'm allowed. If it's just "make up some holy days and ritual practices", that's not really a ton of input. Can I make up a holy order? Can I have input into their beliefs? Can I tweak the alignment, like say this LG god is really more LN?

Like, it's pretty core to me that I play a character that's my idea, not the GM's idea. I generally don't want the GM to make a setting that has PC concept-shaped holes that I'm expected to fill as a player.

I think this puts word to a central concept I have been circling around myself.

To what extent is the character the game?

I now realise this might indeed just be a facet of a much more profound observation about the distribiton of creative input.

If we take the hard core old school as a baseline. Before play the GM is expected to prepare a setting with at least one interesting location to explore mapped and keyed to a certain level of detail. This is a big creative input to the game. The players on the other hand is rolling up a mostly random character. There are hardly any creative input from them at all in this process.

However once actually playing, the GM is expected to take on the role of a pure referee. Ideally given the prepared setting material there should be no creative input needed from the GM at all. The players however are encuraged to be creative with how they interact with the various setting elements. Noone are concerned with creating anything new for the setting during play.

Also while playing, characters can die at any time, to be rapidly replaced. This isn't meant to be much more anoying than "skip a turn" in a children boardgame. The setting is the game. The characters are just an abstraction for how players can interact with the setting.


Now compare this with the following style of game:
The GM does hardly anything before the game. Meanwhile each of the players create a character. This is a highly creative process. During play, the GM is having a special creative responsibility in figuring out interesting situations to put the characters in. Meanwhile the player's main role lies in interpreting these situations in terms of their understanding of the characters, to determine how they should react.

Notice how the roles has more or less reversed? Here the setting is an after thought to be discarded and changed as is needed to support the situations. The characters is the game.

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When a GM is creating a setting in the first instance, they are essentially creating the game. And then it make sense if they want the creative freedom to create a game they think they would like themselves, and that hopefully the other players would like. This is a heavy responsibility with such an centralised process.

However in the second instance, the characters is the game! And these are being created by the players. So of course the players would want the creative freedom to create a game they would like to play! I think this is the sentiment I see expressed in what you write here.


What I am seeing is that a lot of trad games today appear to be a mix of these two extremes. And I start wondering if this might be a problem. Are we essentially trying to play two kinds of games at once that doesn't really harmonise? How can a GM both work well as a unpartial referee and a situation creator at the same time? How can players both seek out cool creative things to do with their characters at the same time as they try to live up to and sharpen the vision of their character? And who is responsible for bringing the game?

 

[FrogReaver]

It's interesting in how we see the same problem but chose different ways to address it.

To me, the idea that the exact same ability progression would be seen across tens of thousands of individuals is extremely damaging to verisimilitude. And I can't see a logical reason that a simple cultural or educational set of practices could produce that level of conformity.

As such, there are only three ways I can create verisimilitude for myself while still maintaining a class structure for gameplay.

1) Class as metagame construct. Class is a gamist PC building tool. There may be some correlations between a metagame class and an in-fiction identification, but no strict alignment.

2) A large number (100+) of loosely connected smaller classes. Closer to WHRP careers than D&D full progression classes.

3) Class as supernatural diegetic entity, enforced by supernatural laws.

I tend to align with 1. Not much more to add, just thought it was interesting and worth mentioning.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It's interesting in how we see the same problem but chose different ways to address it.

To me, the idea that the exact same ability progression would be seen across tens of thousands of individuals is extremely damaging to verisimilitude. And I can't see a logical reason that a simple cultural or educational set of practices could produce that level of conformity.

As such, there are only three ways I can create verisimilitude for myself while still maintaining a class structure for gameplay.

1) Class as metagame construct. Class is a gamist PC building tool. There may be some correlations between a metagame class and an in-fiction identification, but no strict alignment.

2) A large number (100+) of loosely connected smaller classes. Closer to WHRP careers than D&D full progression classes.

3) Class as supernatural diegetic entity, enforced by supernatural laws.

I think variation brought by subclasses helps a bit here. I also like classes and subclasses that let you choose stuff, like the Totem Barbarian, whereas there is an unifying theme of animal totems (so they come from cultures where animal spirits are revered) but still allows variation between individuals.

And your #1 just is a no go for me. I just do not want to play a game like that. If mechanics do not represent anything concrete, if not fully diegetic then at least a thematic archetype, I just do not want to touch it.

I think the strength of classes is that they are strong recognisable archetypes that come with lore that attack them for setting, and if they are not used like that, then I just do not want to use classes at all. There are plenty of classless systems I can use, but if I choose to use classes then they must mean something.

 

[TwoSix]

What I am seeing is that a lot of trad games today appear to be a mix of these two extremes. And I start wondering if this might be a problem. Are we essentially trying to play two kinds of games at once that doesn't really harmonise? How can a GM both work well as a unpartial referee and a situation creator at the same time? How can players both seek out cool creative things to do with their characters at the same time as they try to live up to and sharpen the vision of their character? And who is responsible for bringing the game?

I would generally agree with this. Certainly, within the same system (assuming systems that are roughly D&D-shaped), any one group can use either approach, but it is usually inharmonious to attempt both at the same time.

Just thinking out loud; I could hypothesize a game style with narrative-style character focus that frames challenges to the PCs that are always laden with setting specific info to allow the GM ample opportunity to present their authorship. Specific challenges would be indexed to both pressing character needs as well as GM-generated extrapolation of NPC factions. It's lightly trodden ground in terms of games that attempt it, and it would probably be challenging to GM, but probably not impossible.

 

[TwoSix]

I tend to align with 1. Not much more to add, just thought it was interesting and worth mentioning.

My default is 1, although I've been experimenting with the other two approaches I outlined the past few years.

I started a thread about the topic a few years back, the topic definitely created some interesting fault lines around people's approaches.

 

[Lanefan]

That's hardcore, you still use level drain!

Ayup. It's not frequent, but having a sometimes-hungry Vampire as a PC party member might have changed that...

Have you ever collaborated with a player using a non-traditional playable race or class for their backstory to fit your campaign or has it always been a no?

Only when said non-traditional species (not class) was rolled on the "Other" species table, which as noted upthread is heavily gated.

Some of those over the years have proven...interesting...to try to assimilate as PCs: a Gnoll*, a Centaur, two Leprechauns at different times, a Dryad, a Drow, and a few other things I don't remember right now. And that's ignoring permanent or long-term temporary polymorph effects such as when a PC became a Sylph for quite some time, then got better.

One of the characters in the party right now is a half-Skulk half-Frostman. A statistical outlier in every possible sense, he's a carry-forward from an old campaign of mine and as such is also a combination of classes I no longer allow. His species - both of them! - give him a few powers and drawbacks that nobody else has, and (probably more by good luck than anything else) he's thus far fit in OK power-wise.

Other than that, while players are free to try different "builds" within the classes, the classes themselves are locked in.

* - duirng his career that Gnoll got turned into a Hobgoblin (wild magic surge, I think), then a Human (permanent polymorph), then a Dwarf (he held on to the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords too long), then back to Human (the Axe effect wore off after he stopped carrying it).

 

[FrogReaver]

That may be answered by clarifying that I mean "player-character" and not simply "character". That is, the player in the mode of inhabiting and acting within the world.

That's helpful.

I do not think player alone should be excluded, because folk have testified to being able to sustain a separation between or avoid dwelling upon authorship.

I think the broader question is what that testimony means.

My proposal would be this:
They mean something different by inhabiting their character than I mean. Probably reflecting a holistic definition instead of the moment to moment one I use. I might go on to say that play that is experienced as holistic inhabitation of the character doesn't require 100% of all moments to be inhabiting the character.

In practice this means some degree of not inhabiting the character in the moment to moment doesn't impact the experience of holistically inhabiting the character over the play experience. Hopefully that isn't controversial. There's a difference in a liar that tells the truth and an honest man that lies, it's the difference in moment to moment vs holistic categorization.

I think our problem is that you are focused on the holistic and not the moment to moment and i'm focused on the moment to moment and not the holistic. Those concepts don't have to be at odds, even if on the surface they may seem to be.

Say I open one of the books of Earthsea and based on what I read there, establish what happens. Is there a fountain in the courtyard in the school on Roke? I answer that by looking at the first book of Earthsea and seeing that there is.

Ah, I think I tend to lump setting into system, but maybe I shouldn't.

There's a separation some folk are able to achieve, between authoring and audiencing, which I assume to be at the level of cognitive processes. I'd recommend playing Ironsworn to get a sense of this.

I think it really depends on if you are talking in the moment to moment or holistically. I don't see that separation in the moment to moment at all. It's distinctly one or the other. Holistically I can see that though.

 

[Lanefan]

I started designing my current setting Artra probably about a year before the game actually began. At that point I had no idea whether it would even end up as a campaign or who the players might be. And in case of @Lanefan they have a world they've originally designed decades ago, so it was obvious impossible to involve the current players into setting the initial parameters of the world then. Hell, some of them might not have even been born then!

Not quite that extreme: the setting I'm using now was designed for this campaign, so only 17 years ago. They were all very much alive then.

That said, three of the current four players didn't start the campaign and the one who did was out for about 8 years in the middle, then came back.

And frankly, world building simply is sort of thing I really do not care to do collaboratively. It is sort of stuff I can do alone between campaigns and games. I rather use the time I have together with my friends actually playing.

Agreed.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Enrahim relating to the two modes you outline, when running a game I effectively have two different modes as a GM. Between the games I plan stuff, and at that point I consider how to create interesting situations that speak to the characters. But when we actually play, I try to refrain adding or altering new elements; the board is set, and we play to see what happens.