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

[Maxperson]

Do you also NOT tell them if the Shield spell will help prevent the opponent's attack?

That's the rule for the spell. They get to know if the roll hit, but not what the number is.

 

[Guest 85555]

Okay. Describe the information in observable-terms, rather than thinky-terms. "Looks like it would probably work"/"It might work, but might not"/"The attack's coming from a really awkward angle" etc.

And most GMs do this. But every situation is different. The Gm could be telegraphing everything and you still might get it wrong. That is a risk of using a spell like shield. You know before casting it won’t work on certain things. If you are unclear, try asking follow up questions before doing so. If it has already attack you can ask how strong its blows appeared to be for example.

Though being perfectly honest, someone who can't accept any form whatsoever of merely flavoring description with emotion sounds to me like someone who can't really play TTRPGs.

I don’t even know what you are trying to say here.

 

[SableWyvern]

Let me put it in extremely simple terms then.

Trust isn't perfect. A person can do something that puts you off. Not enough to break trust*. Just wobble it some. "Hmm," Jane says. "That seems...off."

She goes to DM Alice. "Alice, you did a thing that concerned me a little." How does Alice respond?

Per this thread, Alice responds, "You just have to trust me." No answers. No accountability. No work to build trust. No work to keep trust. Trust MUST be there, flawless, from time zero. Just, "You must trust me."

To me? That answer writes off Jane's mild worry in a very worrying way. Far from calming a wobble, that answer IS breaking trust.

*People get so mad at me for "extreme" positions attributed or taken...and then they do this. Seriously, you yourself have just MADE this two hard, binary extremes: either trust is utterly full and complete and perfect without even the slightest hint of a whisper of a shadow of a doubt, or it has thoroughly and utterly failed. There can be no in-between for you, no shades of grey. Either trust is utter and perfect and you'd never question anything a DM did ever, or you cannot ever believe anything at all and completely reject any association whatsoever. How is that not a ridiculously extreme stance?

I haven't tried to make this anything. I've told you how I and my group operates. Something about the way I've done that does not sit well with you, but I'm not really sure why. You seem to be asking me for tips on dealing with limited or broken trust, but I have no answers for you. As I have already explained, I don't think I'm the best person for to be looking to for help on that topic, because I don't really experience the problems you're talking about.

I honestly don't know what else to say. The issues that arise around the gaming table are, in my experience, trivial. How we resolve the imaginary outcomes of imaginary quests is simply not worth getting angry and upset over. It's not worth allowing doubts and concerns to linger and fester. I am not friends with people who love to cause drama (or, if I am, they're smart enough to keep their drama out of my sphere), and I rarely deal with drama and angst in my life. If one of my players does have a problem with something I do, they will just tell me, probably bluntly. I will listen and give their concerns honest contemplation. If I then say (with respect to a game-related/GM judgement call concern), "There's a really good reason for that, just trust me," then they will almost certainly trust me. One of the reasons they trust me is because they know that I can take feedback on board and if I've made a bad call, I'll almost certainly recognise it and make amends. And, if occasionally, we just continue to disagree, we'll talk it out a bit more but, ultimately, if we don't reach a consensus, they'll defer to my judgement because I've been running games for them for over 20 years, they like the way I run them, they know that I'm never making a ruling just to be a mean or because I'm on a power trip and if very occasionally I make a call they don't like, it's just not that big a deal. They know that someone has to have the power to make the final decision and, in our group, that's the GM.

In the last game I was a player, the GM railroaded us at one point. How do I know? It felt like it at the time, but later he straight up admitted it, with no prompting. I didn't like it at the time, but it was just a game, he hasn't run games in ages, he was stepping up to give me a break and it wasn't worth worrying about. When it felt clear to me we only had one choice at the time during the session, i rolled with it, rather than causing the game to break down.

If that campaign was going to continue for a lot longer, I would have let him know I didn't like it, explained why and we would have had a discussion about it. If he wanted to keep running games like that, because it made it easier for him, I would probably have got on board and just lived with it for a while. Maybe he would have made efforts to change the way he runs? Who knows. Either way, it's just a non issue. And, like I said, since it was only quite a short term thing, and it only happened once, I didn't even feel the need to bring it up. And it didn't damage my trust in him, or willingness to play along, at all.

I have a player who has a good friend (some one he is probably closer to than me) who has been pestering him for a long time to join his D&D group. This player chooses not to, because he doesn't have enough time for two regular groups and he wants the sort of games I tend to run. He likes knowing the world doesn't exist for his character, but that his character, if he plays well, can bend the world to his will. He enjoys many of the things that some people in this thread believe are impossible or illusory. And he trusts me to give him those things.

I don't know what else to say. That's my experience. Those are my thoughts. Make of them what you will. I am genuinely sorry if my position or the way I explain it upsets you, makes you feel angry, makes you feel as if I'm not reading what you write or as if I'm dismissing the way you feel. That is not my intent.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Which issue, trust or rules? Are you sure they are different?

I was talking about rules in general. They are not totally unrelated, sure, but within the context of the thread, they are distinct things.

The standard "Old School <insert your preferred R word here>" attitude is that rules are the worst thing ever inflicted upon TTRPGs. Doesn't matter what they're for. Get rid of 'em unless you can't--and minimize them as much as physically possible if you truly can't eliminate them. Make everything ad-hoc processes, a Weierstrass function of fractal roughness. The idea that a rule could ever be a useful tool for anything at all, for any pat of the gameplay experience, is treated as something only a fool could think.

 

[Maxperson]

Why isn't this decision arbitrary?

Because it is based in reason.

Folks have repeatedly insisted that it is not, in any way shape or form, arbitrary. Yet now that we drill down to it, the answer is...a shrug? As I've said many times, with GM effort, nearly anything can be made "realistic", doubly so when that effort happens entirely behind the black box.

Context provides the basis for the reasoning and cannot be provided here, because there's no way to provide the level of detail you get in an actual game in a typed out example. There are too many variables that come out of an organically run game that combine with the game rules and setting to provide the context.

There are, in most cases, a superabundance of paths that are either already realistic purely based on what is already known, or which GM effort could make realistic, albeit with varying degrees of effort.

If the DM has to work to make something realistic, it wasn't realistic to begin with. We don't work to make something realistic. Either it is or isn't before we start reasoning things through. There can be multiple possibilities, but there's not going to be a superabundance of them.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And most GMs do this.

The person in question was saying they wouldn't. That's why I said what I said.

I don’t even know what you are trying to say here.

A player who gets outright upset because of something so mild as "it's worryingly close to the line"--necessarily an emotional description, but descriptive nonetheless--would be extremely tedious to actually interact with at the DMing table.

You can't describe anything as beautiful, frightening, awe-inspiring, freaky, enraging, unsettling, revolting, pleasant, etc., because that's ascribing a mental-emotional state to the observer, which means you're describing what they're thinking.

 

[Maxperson]

How? How can you distinguish arbitrary from non-arbitrary when the world is sealed behind the black box, other than the drip of information the GM feeds you?

Because if the DM is just making rulings on whim and without thoughtful reasoning, he's going to quickly start making conflicting rulings. Further, the players will have most of the information the DM has, so rulings made on whim and not reason will often not make sense with even the information the player has.

I mean, I don't personally see any difference between those two things.

That's a major problem. They are VERY different definitions and if you think they are the same, you will rarely be correct when you use the word.

Choices made without even the possibility of oversight, you cannot distinguish between the two senses of arbitrary. You literally cannot tell what is capricious and what isn't--because anything can be justified as "realistic" with enough effort, and we've already established that the GM is going to extensive prior effort!

Absolutely, 100% false. Based on the information the player has, it's very often easy to tell if a ruling is being made on a whim rather than reason.

 

[AlViking]

I should know better than to ever give a specific scenario because no matter what it will be nit-picked to death. In any case sorry for the long post but I thought I'd clarify what I was thinking. I don't think climbing a cliff is really all that important, I was just using it as an example of something that could happen in my game. In any case here goes.

I suspect that most people who think that you can just look at a cliff and always know how easy it is to climb have never actually gone rock climbing. If you're at the bottom of a cliff that could potentially be a difficult climb there are many times you can't just look at the rock. You may have to interact with it and start climbing to know what type of rock it is. I remember an article about a pair of rock climbers who went to Antarctica to climb some mountains no one had ever scaled. People had seen the mountains from a plane but once the pair got there and started to climb realized that the rock just crumbled as they climbed. They had spent thousands of dollars and wasted tremendous effort to realize the mountains could not be scaled. Even if you are at a cliff face the rock at the bottom can be completely different from the rock 50 feet up, the type of rock in one layer may be easy to climb but the next may not support your weight.

Then there's simply the possibility of there being no handholds, the cliff face may be too smooth to climb or a much higher DC than anticipated unless you're Spider-Man. If you're looking at tall enough cliff, if it's relatively smooth and steep you have no idea if there are handholds all the way to the top.

So a scenario I could potentially do this? A crumbling castle at the top of a butte (a steep spire with a flat top, a small mesa). For some reason there's a ticking clock and you really want to stop something before the sun sets. You're at the base of the butte and there's a path up, but it's visible from the castle and going up could raise the alarm and you may be attacked from on high. The butte is a bit over a 200 foot tall and steep on the side opposite the path. From the bottom it looks okay but there's no way to tell, it's just too far to see detail. Do you send the barbarian up so he can drop a rope from the top? There's enough time to do it before sunset which might give you enough time to get the drop on the enemy but it could also be the barbarian that drops. Both approaches have uncertainty and risk. Take a risk climbing but have almost guaranteed surprise or the safer path but risk attack and no surprise. What do you do?

Why would I do this? Maybe the players will think of clever alternatives like have the barbarian start the climb and then send an illusion up the path to see if they get attacked. Maybe the wizard's player whips out the scroll of spider climb I forgot they had and they feel cool and awesome for having the right tool handy for bypassing an obstacle. Maybe the barbarian gets to a certain point, can't find any more handholds and now it's a mad dash up the path to the castle. Does the barbarian try to join them? Jump down even though I don't cap damage? Do they go up without the barbarian?

Sometimes making decisions without full knowledge of the risks adds to the tension of the game which makes scenarios like this memorable.

 

[Guest 85555]

I was talking about rules in general. They are not totally unrelated, sure, but within the context of the thread, they are distinct things.

The standard "Old School <insert your preferred R word here>" attitude is that rules are the worst thing ever inflicted upon TTRPGs. Doesn't matter what they're for. Get rid of 'em unless you can't--and minimize them as much as physically possible if you truly can't eliminate them. Make everything ad-hoc processes, a Weierstrass function of fractal roughness. The idea that a rule could ever be a useful tool for anything at all, for any pat of the gameplay experience, is treated as something only a fool could think.

I don't think this is a fair assessment of the OSR. First off, there are lots of schools of thought in the OSR. We have talked about the Old School Primer, and its take on rulings over rules (which is a common sentiment), but that isnt' the only approach. There are OSR games that have skills, that have trap disarm rules, etc. The idea of rulings over rules, is an important one for creating focus on the players engaging the environment, and the approach generally is more about the GM facilitating things. But I don't think most OSR people would say rules being useful is a thought for fools. Many also play crunchy games with rules for everything. It can however be refreshing to strip things down and take a rulings over rules approach. I myself do both and don't see any conflict. Sometimes I like robust rulesets. Sometimes I want to go back to that experience I had with OD&D (which can be very fun and immersive).

Now rulings over rules doesn't work for everyone. No one is saying you have to be on board with it. I think I have two games that include rulings over rules sections in the GM chapter. For some people rulings over rules opens up the experience of the game and makes it work, and I hear from those folks, but I also hear from people who need every feature of a rule or system spelled out (for whatever reason), and I don't see either preference as better. There is a cost to spelling everything out, but there is also a cost to not spelling everything out. And there is a gain to spelling everything out, and there is a gain to not spelling everything out.

 

[AnotherGuy]

That's the rule for the spell. They get to know if the roll hit, but not what the number is.

So, I can respect that, that is consistency!
I play it the other way -
The PC would know if the Shield would work or not so I give that data.
The PC would know how difficult they would find the climb (personally) so I give the data.
I use the word personally because someone's moderate may be another one's difficult.