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

[Micah Sweet]

Maybe not in your D&D games. I've been doing that for a long time.

How else am I supposed to know if there's a cleric in the town? I certainly don't bother to do that prep ahead of time.

The player is very welcome to make suggestions about what might be in a rown, especially as I'm unlikely to have every detail fully realized. If what they say makes sense, I'll probably allow it. But it's still my decision to make in my game. If you're fine with players making those decisions for the setting without any say from you, fair enough. But that's not my game. In my game players ask questions about the world, and I answer them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Dupe post.

 

[Enrahim]

To some extent, aren't all tabletop rpgs open-ended?

Not really. I have seen and experienced some very closed form games that has been labeled RPG (reasonably in my eyes). Also systems that can support open-ended play are often used for more close-ended play like one-shots and adventure paths.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Oftentimes the rules don't need to tell us that because their writers can safely assume we already know it: it's simple variance in human performance from one hour-day-week-etc. to the next that we've all seen and experienced countless times.

The climbing example here - if it's 50-50 that you'll make it, that tells us the climb is pretty close to the edge of your ability. If you're "on" today, you'll make it; while if you're having an off day you won't. The rules don't have to tell us this (though I suppose one could argue that for completeness, they could anyway) because it's obvious.

Falling rules don't go into explanations of gravity for the same reason: we already know it well enough for game purposes.

I think you’ve just described the issue with the word “simulation” as it applies to RPGs. I think that when we talk about something being a simulation, we’re generally expecting such elaboration… we want to know how things are calculated and how they inform the game.

A general handwave “we’ll do it this way and that’s close enough, everyone’ll get it” isn’t really what I think of as simulation.

And the reason this matters to the discussion is that there are games that do the latter, and there are games that do the former. What’s happening in this thread is people are labeling one instance of the former as simulation, but other instances of the former as not simulations.

The player is very welcome to make suggestions about what might be in a rown, especially as I'm unlikely to have every detail fully realized. If what they say makes sense, I'll probably allow it. But it's still my decision to make in my game. If you're fine with players making those decisions for the setting without any say from you, fair enough. But that's not my game. In my game players ask questions about the world, and I answer them.

You don’t rely on knowledge checks and the like? History, Religion, and the like? I know a lot of times this kind of skill is just used to gate information behind higher DCs or something similar.

I’ve started using them to determine the nature of the information revealed. Not just the quality, but the specifics and if it’s generally good news or bad news.

I’ve been doing this in trad games for a while now and it works just fine.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have no reason at all why I don't notice my cat sneaking up on me other than as mere mortals we don't pay attention to 100% of our surroundings at all times. A specific character may be more likely to notice something because they have a natural aptitude and have trained themselves to be more observant as is reflected by ability score modification and skill proficiency. Other than that why should we need more detail than what we have in real life?

You have ignored the key argument.

You are now saying, there are times when we just roll with whatever the abstraction tells us. It doesn't need to be explained. It's just whatever the dice tell us. Don't sweat it, just accept it and move on.

That either generalizes, and now you need to explain why it was so bloody important to specify all the niggly details before that (allegedly) made certain other approaches so utterly unacceptable, or it's somehow hyper special to just this one case and thus doesn't generalize but also isn't somehow special pleading.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The assigned role of the DM though is to run a campaign fairly and to have fun. He has no "in world" objectives. It is why he determines what magic items get into the game. The players have characters in the world and they have an agenda. Now, I fully expect them to be honest and fair but they have temptations not to be. As a DM, I've seen it happen.

Now, I've also seen bad DMs and to be honest, I've never felt they were containable by the players threatening and browbeating them. Any DM this would work on is likely a very poor DM anyway. But sure the players can decide if they feel the DM is unfair to fire him as DM for their group.

The assigned role of the player is to participate in a campaign fairly and to have fun. She has no "out of character" objectives. It is why she determines information about her character. The GM has everything else in the world and they have an agenda. Now, I fully expect them to be honest and fair bit they have temptations not to be. As a player, I've seen it happen.

Now, I've also seen bad players, and to be honest, Ice never felt they were containable by the GM threatening and browbeating them. Any player this would work on is likely a very poor player anyway. But sure, the GM can decide if they feel like the player is misbehaving, to eject them as a player in their group.

Funny how the exact same argument cuts both ways, eh?

My experience with power outside the world is very limited.

Mine is not.

Further, you act like power inside the world is somehow some tiny minor thing of no real consequence, when it's anything but. It's literally the most important power one could have in the activity. Like saying that Congress "only" has the power of the purse, as if that weren't one of the most important things for making a government run!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not supporting anyone's argument here with this statement. I am just informing because I have played Diplomacy. Negotiation is required to be successful at Diplomacy. Thus the name of the game. Everyone is constantly negotiation and they do so in secret.

Does that mean "negotiation about the assignment of a specific narrow set of resources or the specific deployment of defined forces"?

Or does it mean "negotiation over the fundamental structure of the rules and the game, up to and including how victory is defined "?

Because pretending the two things are 100% identical is an equivocation fallacy.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This strikes me as the same argument folks use to say people aren't playing D&D because of some house rule or other, instead of just saying that the rule would make it not feel like D&D to them.

I've played very, very few games of Monopoly where free parking didn't have money for those who land on it and taxes didn't go into that pot. It's a very common house rule and the game was still Monopoly, even though negotiated rules were different.

There might be some point where changing enough rules causes it to cease being Dune, but it's not a clearcut point most of us will have different points where we consider the game changed sufficiently

If the entirety of the rules are up for renegotiation at any time for any reason simply because some participant wants to, then no, you are not playing Dune. You are playing a game which is provisionally like Dune until it isn't, and then it is only unlike Dune for as long as you elect for it to be so, until it becomes like it again.

Actual, formal house rules—in Lanefan's style, where they are hard coded and no one, not even the GM, can simply overrule them without a deliberative process—are not this. That's playing "Dune*", where it is Dune with specific, defined exceptions.

That is deeply, fundamentally different from being able to renegotiate what "combat" means simply because you feel like renegotiating that today...and then returning to the original rule tomorrow.

 

[AlViking]

You have ignored the key argument.

You are now saying, there are times when we just roll with whatever the abstraction tells us. It doesn't need to be explained. It's just whatever the dice tell us. Don't sweat it, just accept it and move on.

That either generalizes, and now you need to explain why it was so bloody important to specify all the niggly details before that (allegedly) made certain other approaches so utterly unacceptable, or it's somehow hyper special to just this one case and thus doesn't generalize but also isn't somehow special pleading.

The whole point of abstraction is to not sweat the small stuff. But as I've asked many times before, what type of system would you want? I don't see a better way of handling perception and I think ability modifier plus proficiency is as good a model as any especially for something like perception. We humans do not pay attention to everything going on around us, we just don't.

Beyond that I'm at a loss for what you're even trying to say. Are there systems with more detail? Of course. I just don't see how a chart or lookup table is any better, it just changes who provides the reason for failure to the author that cannot know the current situation. There is also no way a detailed system can cover everything a character might attempt. If there's a better system, give examples of the actual detail of the system and how it works.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The whole point of abstraction is to not sweat the small stuff. But as I've asked many times before, what type of system would you want? I don't see a better way of handling perception and I think ability modifier plus proficiency is as good a model as any especially for something like perception. We humans do not pay attention to everything going on around us, we just don't.

Beyond that I'm at a loss for what you're even trying to say. Are there systems with more detail? Of course. I just don't see how a chart or lookup table is any better, it just changes who provides the reason for failure to the author that cannot know the current situation. There is also no way a detailed system can cover everything a character might attempt. If there's a better system, give examples of the actual detail of the system and how it works.

There isn't a better system.

But the point is that you and others have openly rejected this kind of thinking in other places as utterly unacceptable.

Like this is precisely why the lock picking failure resulting in an encounter with the cook was unacceptable. The abstraction didn't specify super ultra hard. It was dependent on context, on the GM making a reasonable judgment call about the extended situation around the attempt, not the ultra-narrow singular act of inserting lockpicks into the tumbler of a lock.

Horrible awful affront to all that is good then.

Now it's necessary.

I hope you can see why I would find that turnaround infuriating.