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

[Aldarc]

My read on your statement was that it was implied. Apologies if I misrepresented you.

No worries. The reminder is always helpful.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Although, I have to say, for anyone who has the module, the Whorlstone caverns dungeon is one of the absolute best, hands down, dungeon crawls I've ever run. Man that's a fan-freaking-tastic dungeon.

Cool, will check it out as I skimmed through the 1st ACT of that AP.
I've mashed a few APs together, one of these being OotA, so when my table eventually decided to do some reconnaissance work for the Council (ToD) in the underdark, they were more than high-enough level to start off with a meeting with Vizeran (chapter 12).
What I saw of the 2nd ACT of the AP, I really liked the idea behind the Vast Oblivium. I had an idea about them finding a wounded Drizzt in that location's depths having failed (he and his team) to acquire some of the items needed for the ritual. Hence Vizeran seeking assistance from the Factions/Council due to having lost contact with Drizzt. But alas, that was not to be...

My table decided not to assist Vizeran, after they met with him, as they perceived their limited time before the event (ToD - Tiamat's arrival) would be better served helping King Hekaton against Iymrith, the Dragon of Statues (SKT).

 

[Maxperson]

Well for me it is negative but I assumed some people like it. So it was "neutral" in the broader world but it was a negative to me. I mean Paizo sells a lot of adventure paths. I don't mind though the change of terms if railroad has become too toxic but then why is linear good? Won't it soon become toxic because it means the group will keep going from point A to point B to point C without deviation?

Because linear is unforced. Like I said, linear is like walking down a forest path. You are on a line, but at any time if you want to step off in a different direction to look at or do something else, you can. The bolded portion is not a part of linear. You can deviate if you want to. The main portion of the adventure just happens in a line, and you can just leave the adventure to do a different one if you want.

 

[Maxperson]

I agree. I’d just add I think the notion of forcing someone to do something implies, even necessitates that you are forcing that thing against their will. That’s why I don’t think forcing them to do something they want to do makes semantic sense.

Yeah. The difference is force as in to coerce(your definition) or to force as in to force open a stuck cabinet(my definition) which clearly has no will. With my definition, most of the time if something is living, it's not going to like force used against it, so will be a negative. Sometimes, though, the living being is okay with force being used against it, as in a boxing match.

Like I said, it's a fundamental difference.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Character freedom varies significantly from one campaign to the next. I'm playing a game set in FR using Candlekeep Mysteries. I can play any species in the book but it's all fairly linear games. Meanwhile in my games I provide a sandbox that's pretty wide open but I limit allowed species.

Okay? I'm not entirely sure what this clarifies.

Is changing the rubber prosthetics the character uses to distinguish their species more important? Sandbox?

Do you remember, earlier, when we (collectively, not necessarily us two) spoke about folks intentionally using inflammatory language, and how it wasn't super productive?

You have intentionally described the preferences of others in this thread as being equivalent to rubber prosthetic swapping. That's both dismissive and counterproductive, if your goal is to have a conversation. Indeed, we just had people saying that being intentionally provocative in order to make a point was more harmful than helpful.

As far as pre-approval, that has as much to do with what the other players at the table want as anything in my experience. Meanwhile you can't play an alien with super powers in a D&D game, we always accept limitations.

But are these the same sort of thing? You present it as though there are only two possibilities: things that are perfectly acceptable such that no one could ever object, and things that are so perfectly unacceptable that no reasonable person could ever justify them, and thus anyone asking for such a thing MUST be inherently unreasonable. Having established these black-and-white categories, you can then fork anything that fits into the vast grey area between as actually belonging to the latter, and thus rejected outright without consideration.

The excluded middle is pretty big here. There are a LOT of things that are much more reasonable than the canards frequently spouted in this thread (e.g. the "Wookiee Jedi in Dark Sun" or whatever setting had been chosen), yet which aren't hypertraditional "approved by Tolkien 20 years before D&D existed" options either. The further slippery-slope argument (that a player asking for X thing is necessarily going to be a player who demands everything be perfect for them and thus they're nearly guaranteed to be a Problem Player the moment they ask for something the GM didn't explicitly include initially) is just some insulting icing on the injurious cake.

 

[Enrahim]

Yeah, that's generally the distinction people make, and I get it, and tend to just go along with that. But personally, I don't see that much of a distinction because the resulting play is essentially the same. The experience is going to be the same.

The reason people make this distinction is because this is the distinction. Yes, the experience might turn out basically the same, but the mindset is different. Which means when you are calling some play for "railroad" rather than "linear", this come across as if you are actually making claims about the mindset of those involved.

You see how this can be a problem?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah, you're right. Those terms are no less potentially offensive. Does the fact that both "sides" are guilty validate the practice?

No.

What it does is, I don't see much strength in an argument of "don't be insulting to me", when the speaker has either personally employed insulting terms already, or has passed without comment when people they agree with have employed insulting terms toward people they don't.

People shouldn't be insulting. I'll completely grant that, and I apologize for having insulted you. That was rude.

But if we're going to expect a higher standard, we need to expect it uniformly. When I see it, I absolutely try to call out behavior I don't think appropriate, even when it's defending a position I favor. I won't name names, but there was a person in this very thread who I reported (and, it would seem, rightfully so) despite their position (not their arguments for it) being one I agreed with.

People shouldn't throw snowballs with rocks in them. That's just not okay. But I think you'd understand a child's incredulity if one of their peers got upset about being hit with a rock-in-a-snowball after said peer, or one of said peer's collaborators, already did throw more than one rock-in-a-snowball. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander" can, unfortunately, lead to "an eye for an eye" or worse. But it's not hard to see an issue of fairness when Alex calls out the Snowball Sluggers for sticking rocks in, but stays silent while knowing that one or more of their Winter Warrior allies is throwing rocks too.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The reason people make this distinction is because this is the distinction. Yes, the experience is basically the same, but the mindset is different. Which means when you are calling some play for "railroad", this come across as if you are actually making claims about the mindset of those involved.

You see how this can be a problem?

Though it kind of depends. On one hand, I think blowing off the semantic loading on "railroad" is either blind to how such things matter or a little disingenuous, on the other hand, self-awareness can show when one is aware that the distinction largely is about awareness; when I ran Scion 1e years ago, it was very much a linear experience because the nature of characters in Scion made it very hard to do anything else and not have the game go right off the rails. Everyone was pretty much aware of that and I even acknowledged it had been largely a railroad at the end, and the late and much missed Steve Perrin nodded and said "Yeah, we all knew. But we enjoyed the trip."

 

[Aldarc]

Though it kind of depends. On one hand, I think blowing off the semantic loading on "railroad" is either blind to how such things matter or a little disingenuous, on the other hand, self-awareness can show when one is aware that the distinction largely is about awareness; when I ran Scion 1e years ago, it was very much a linear experience because the nature of characters in Scion made it very hard to do anything else and not have the game go right off the rails. Everyone was pretty much aware of that and I even acknowledged it had been largely a railroad at the end, and the late and much missed Steve Perrin nodded and said "Yeah, we all knew. But we enjoyed the trip."

You ran THE Steve Perrin through a game?

 

[AlViking]

Okay? I'm not entirely sure what this clarifies.


Do you remember, earlier, when we (collectively, not necessarily us two) spoke about folks intentionally using inflammatory language, and how it wasn't super productive?

You have intentionally described the preferences of others in this thread as being equivalent to rubber prosthetic swapping. That's both dismissive and counterproductive, if your goal is to have a conversation. Indeed, we just had people saying that being intentionally provocative in order to make a point was more harmful than helpful.

I was thinking Star Trek where every new race they come across has basically two flavors. The first is the Planet of Hats trope where every member of the species is part of the same monoculture. All klingons are warlike but value honor and so on. But then once a member of any of these species join Starfleet, they're basically just humans with minor cosmetic changes.

In my experience, species in D&D are pretty much the same. They may have pointy ears or they're big and gray skinned with tattoos (are the markings on Goliaths tattoos?). But once they're a character all that pretty much goes out the window other than maybe an accent or catch phrase here and there. I just don't see that it makes much difference.

I didn't think (or remember but I don't read every word carefully) of prosthetics being offensive, I'll try to remember not to use it in the future.

But are these the same sort of thing? You present it as though there are only two possibilities: things that are perfectly acceptable such that no one could ever object, and things that are so perfectly unacceptable that no reasonable person could ever justify them, and thus anyone asking for such a thing MUST be inherently unreasonable. Having established these black-and-white categories, you can then fork anything that fits into the vast grey area between as actually belonging to the latter, and thus rejected outright without consideration.

The excluded middle is pretty big here. There are a LOT of things that are much more reasonable than the canards frequently spouted in this thread (e.g. the "Wookiee Jedi in Dark Sun" or whatever setting had been chosen), yet which aren't hypertraditional "approved by Tolkien 20 years before D&D existed" options either. The further slippery-slope argument (that a player asking for X thing is necessarily going to be a player who demands everything be perfect for them and thus they're nearly guaranteed to be a Problem Player the moment they ask for something the GM didn't explicitly include initially) is just some insulting icing on the injurious cake.

Different people value different things. I really don't understand putting what species to play at a higher priority over everything else and if you explained why then I missed it.

But when I'm thinking of joining a game I compromise on my ideal game all the time. I'd love to play a sandbox style game, it basically never happens. I really enjoy playing wizards but I don't mind playing warrior types while every other player never wants to risk being attacked. Ever. So I compromise on that as well.

I don't blame the game, the GM, or the other players. I just accept that its a group activity and compromise is inevitable. Meanwhile if someone is running a fantasy Sopranos game I'll decline because I don't care for evil anti-heroes.

That's just the way it goes, you can't always get what you want but if you try sometime you'll get what you need.