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

[Maxperson]

As I say to bards, "How can I miss you if you won't go away?"

With an arrow?

 

[Maxperson]

I don’t think this is accurate. In both cases, player and character, they hoped to discover that the runes were a clue to find a way out. The player and character are aligned in that sense.

Which is why I say that they are similar, but still distinctly different. Only the player can hope the mechanic and roll work out to change the fiction, rather than fail and potentially turn out badly instead.

 

[Maxperson]

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

Doesn't Call of Cthulhu always end badly as your sanity winds down? And if I recall correctly Paranoia is also one that doesn't tend to be very open-ended.

 

[Maxperson]

In my game players ask questions about the world, and I answer them.

In my game I like to keep questions to a minimum. I don't want to hear, "Is there a cleric in town?" Instead I want to hear something like, "I'm going to ask around town for a cleric." I want something that will move the narrative along, not a Q&A session.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Why not? Why can't we in the middle of the game negotiate a change in a rule or rules that we don't like and still be playing Dune?

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.

A change is a change is a change. There's nothing sacred about only changing one rule before the game that makes it still be Dune, but agreeing to change that one rule in the exact same way in the middle because we elect for it to be so that makes it not Dune. The game rules are identical. Both are Dune.

 

[Umbran]

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

Mod Note:
If you are infuriated about a discussion about how to play a game, it is time to take a break from that discussion. There's been red text and discussion points about this several times in the thread, but that hasn't worked. So I will try once more to make this clear:

Your fury is not binding on anyone else. It is not their responsibility to address or alleviate your fury. They should not be required or expected to change what they think or say to make you feel better about this. Nobody here consented to be your frustration management resource.

It is not fair to them, nor, I expect, to you, to allow you to continue to browbeat folks with your emotional states over this. It is a non-constructive behavior that can become toxic if taken too far.

Therefore, I'm going to give you the weekend off from this discussion. I hope the break will be helpful to you. If you come back, and it is clear that your frustration is still the driver for your engagement, closing the discussion to you will be the next logical step.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Those are not the same.

With the cook the encounter is not directly tied to the lockpicking roll at all. It doesn't even make much sense since a successful attempt makes more noise than a failed one does.

With the perception failure, not noticing the cat is directly tied to perception check.

The details that @AlViking doesn't have are similar to the failed lockpick check and failed climb check. We don't know the specifics of why the failure happened, so we have to narrate some failure of skill that relates to the in-fiction circumstances. The PC didn't notice the cat because he was busy looking at the desk he told the DM he was investigating. The light was bad and he didn't have enough skill to pick the lock purely by feeling. The rock was loose and he failed to notice it.

None of those failures of SKILL are similar to the cook showing up just because an indirectly related roll failed.

 

[Maxperson]

So there isn't a better system and because I think the current system works fine for me ... anything else is completely unacceptable?

I preferred spot and listen being separate skills myself. That was a better system.

 

[pemerton]

I just do not believe you're thinking this logically then. The player has the ability to dictate reality to solve the character's problems, the character doesn't. The difference obviously is there and it not a small one.

On the contrary: you are ignoring the role of epistemic uncertainty, which makes the metaphysical aspect of the situation secondary.

The character does not know what the runes say; but they have a conjecture and a hope. For them, epistemically, it is possible that the runes reveal a way out.

The player does not know what the runes say, but they also have a hope. For them, epistemically, it is possible that the runes reveal a way out.

What resolves the epistemic uncertainty for the character is reading the runes. What resolves the epistemic uncertainty for the player is a resolution process that tells them what happens when the PC tries to read the runes. The fact that the underlying metaphysics are different in each case - in the fiction, the fact about what the runes say becomes known to the PC; in the play of the game, the fact about what the runes say is established via the resolution procedure - is irrelevant. It doesn't change the epistemic situation of either the player or the character.

In a GM-authored-backstory game, nothing changes for the player in respect of their epistemic uncertainty: they don't know, but they hope. And so it remains epistemically possible for them that the runes reveal a way out. What does change is that the uncertainty is resolved not solely by a dice roll, but rather by GM decision-making. For some RPGers this may make for better play - for instance, it permits the game to be a puzzle-solving one - but it doesn't change the basic epistemic situation, nor the relationship between the epistemic and metaphysical situations.

 

[Lanefan]

In my game I like to keep questions to a minimum. I don't want to hear, "Is there a cleric in town?" Instead I want to hear something like, "I'm going to ask around town for a cleric." I want something that will move the narrative along, not a Q&A session.

I just treat the two bolded pieces as synonymous; that a player asking "Is there a Cleric in town" means that player's character is going about making that same inquiry in the fiction, and I'll answer according to the situation.