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

[JConstantine]

His 2022 videos on the rhythm of play on the other hand are excellent!

Those came out long after I ran my first session, and even with experience those videos just don't gel for me.

 

[robertsconley]

See we're similar in very broad strokes, I agree with a lot of that list, but there's undoubtedly a handful of very important differences as well. I'll talk a bit about character, in a very sweeping way, to highlight what may be one of them.

I appreciate the relationship example and that you want to talk about character, I not sure how it addresses any of the questions I raised in the portion of my post you quoted. Those questions weren’t about outcomes in general or about theme arising from character interaction, they were about the procedural differences in how the game is run, including resolution mechanics, the use of clocks and timelines, and the role of referee adjudication.

What I’m asking for is engagement with those distinctions as system and method, not as tone or emphasis. If the claim is that our approaches are “not really different,” then those differences need to be addressed directly.

Taking your narrative example as a separate topic. I am going to attach the Golden House section from my Scourge of the Demon Wolf adventure.

In a normal weekly campaign, I would something about a fifth of the detail if it was the focus of the campaign. For example, me running a solo campaign for a player. So I would have the player make a character and either sub him in as one of the conclave's inhabitants. Or in the case of the character below an outsider who been invited to stay.


We would do a pre-game and the result would be a background like this. Note the background is worked out between us.

Marcellus of Alecto
Race: Human
Class: Mage of the Order of Thoth (4th level)
Age: 32

Background for Marcellus of Alecto
You were born in the city of Alecto, a modest port in the southern foothills of the Majestic Mountains, and showed talent in the arcane arts from a young age. At twelve, you were accepted as an apprentice into the Conclave of Cisora near Modron, a bastion of the Meditus Society known for diplomacy, negotiation, and keeping the Order of Thoth in balance with kings and clergy.

You rose steadily. By the age of twenty-five, you were drafting letters between conclaves, assisting in conferences with church envoys, and developing a reputation for calm competence. Then came the Baron's War on the borderlands, a dispute you were assigned to mediate. You failed. Or perhaps, more accurately, you couldn’t prevent the inevitable. The massacre that followed, over two hundred dead, left a mark on your reputation and your conscience.

Afterward, you requested a sabbatical, citing exhaustion. Your petition was approved, and Knifeada, a fellow Meditus mage whom you once aided during a mission in the Majestic Mountains, arranged for you to take residence as a guest scholar at the Golden House.

You have now lived at the Golden House for several months. Knifeada has vouched for you, giving you access to the Meditus correspondence, Swarton’s archives, and the lower library. You are not a full member of the conclave, but you wear the sigil of the Meditus Society with Knifeada’s personal mark, enough to open most doors and cause others to tread lightly.

Still, it is not a peaceful retirement.

For now, you read. You listen. You offer counsel. You join Knifeada for lunch, and from time to time you find yourself drawn into conversations in the library or the outer study. You’re rebuilding yourself slowly, discreetly.

But you can feel it: the Golden House is not a tranquil place. There are old rivalries, hidden ambitions, and something that festers beneath the surface.

Whether you stay, whether you leave, whether you act, that is for you to decide.

And perhaps, this time, you’ll do better.

---

Then we would start out the first session with something like this.

Me: Charles OK you are now settled in at the Golden House. It is May 1st and you are joined at breakfast by Knifeada. During breakfast she turns to you.

Knifeada (Me): Marcellus Good morning!

Marcellus (Charles): Good morning, Knifeada. You’re up early—have the scrolls started whispering again, or is it just the smell of the cook's bread?

Knifeada: I was up late getting reading for the expedition with Vainvid, I wanted to sleep in but today's is the last day of preparation before heading with Vainvid

Marcellus (Charles lowers his voice slightly):
I had a feeling that was coming soon. Are you expecting a quiet trek or something more... instructive? I can still recall our last “routine survey”—you, me, and that griffon’s nest that wasn’t supposed to exist.

Rob's Note: the griffon's nest is something that Charles improvised. Similar to what went on with Adam and Brendan.

Knifeada: Yeah, that was a mess, but Vainvid got hold of Crandell's Treatise on the wildlife of the Cloudwalls. He thinks that the area where the second ley line goes through is not as dangerous, so we are going to check there for the viz source.

Rob's Note: I accept the improvisation

Marcellus: Second ley line? You’re referring to the shallow convergence that runs south of the Bone Spires, right? I remember Eckart always said it was too diffuse to be worth the trouble. But if Vainvid’s right... that would place the viz spring near the old bear trails.
(Charles pauses, tapping a finger on the table)
You want me to keep an eye on anything while you're gone? I’ve noticed Swarton seems unusually preoccupied lately.

Rob's Notes: Another improvised detail. Note among my experienced players this will happen a lot at the start of the campaign but fade away as the campaign as by then the players would have built a social web complex enough that there is little need to flesh thing out further. But it doesn't entirely disappear.

If the player tries to improvise something that contradicts something they don't know about then I would take a break and quickly work out a new set of details with them. Maybe I already have an adventure locale prepared, it is not the bone spire but Raven's Crag. If I can work it in-game as a correction of the character's memory, I will do that as much as possible.

Knifeada: No you got it mixed up with Raven's Claw. But it is the one south of it. But with Vainvid's knowing how to steer clear of any local lairs, I should have the time to zero in on a source of viz. As for Master Swarton, he came to me last night and told me to put you on indexing and summarizing his latest batch of correspondence. Also, to make it more fun, he is having you do some of Grandmaster Master Witely's papers. He expects you in his office after breakfast.

Marcellus (Charles groans softly, but with a dry smile):
Ah, yes, Swarton’s idea of amusement. Indexing his letters is like decoding politics written in three dialects and a grudge. Adding Witely’s? That’s just cruelty with structure.
(Charles pauses, then adds with a shrug)
Still, better than copying safety procedures for Dwarlard again. I’ll stop by after I see you off, then. If anything important crosses my desk, I’ll be sure to note it in a way that looks boring enough for no one else to read.

Knifeada: OK, while I am done here, I'll catch you before the end of the day in case you have any questions. See you later

Me: OK Charles what do you do?

---

Then we will proceed from there, playing out the day. Prior to this, I would have a rough timeline for the next couple of weeks of in-game and let it play out as Charles as Marcellus interacts with the various NPCs. For example, Arbela's attempts at summoning a demon result in missing ritual components, and her taking an interest in summoning magic. Two apprentices get blamed for the missing ritual components by Fondvette, who loses her temper, causing discontent. Then there is Knifeada's expedition to the Cloudwalls. After each session, I would alter my notes in light of what Charles did as Marcellus. Using what I talked about earlier about outcomes and consquences.

And much of this, like the above, would play out in first-person roleplaying, similar to how it would play out verbally at a LARP.

 

[thefutilist]

Haunted City was more entertaining thanks to the players,

People in general massively over rate systems and how impactful they are. In order of importance it's something like:

The people you're playing with on a general human level

How well they can do functional roleplay

How creative they are

How well they can do functional roleplay with this system


The thing about systems is they can create a load of really crappy dynamics but they're far less good at creating fun play. Also some systems just require more skill than others, mostly ones with a GM because a whole of skill stuff is off loaded onto them.

I watched John run Blades with Geoff and Ezekial3, well I watched the first few sessions. They were great and he was awful and the system was actively detrimental to play. I watched some people from the same crew play swansong, which uses Stars Without Number, and the play was just better because the system got out the way. Adam seemed a bit better as a GM as well, he was absolutely terrible when running Apocalypse World and didn't seem to use the system well despite the fact he'd already written Dungeon World at that point, the system was getting in the way again.

 

[robertsconley]

Things I would consider suspicious DM behavior:

• Zero-discussion refusal to permit what other participants see as a reasonable, warranted course of action, doubly so if coupled with refusal to explain beyond "it will make sense eventually, please wait 3-6 business months"
• Surprising players with obstacles or dangers that should have been knowable or foreseeable, but which somehow went unnoticed until the moment they actually blocked something or caused harm or led to an ambush etc.
• Failure to be consistent with past adjudication, especially if each issue is functionally adjudicated as though for the first time (which is, IMO, the almost-guaranteed result of nearly-but-not-quite-all "rulings, not rules" paradigms*)
• "Explaining" a situation in such a way that only one valid course of action is permitted, even though many others should have been possible but just aren't for some reason that the players aren't allowed to know
• Keeping essential information black-boxed, or (more irritatingly) locking it behind excessively over-detailed required questions, such that the DM can then say "well you never ASKED" as an excuse
• Dismissing player feedback and concerns as not being worthy of attention, or (MUCH worse) even being outright harmful to the campaign
• Arbitrary decision-making, especially when the decision in question unavoidably leads to negative consequences the player(s) would have avoided, or at least tried to avoid, if they knew about it in advance
• Expecting expansive, pervasive trust for anything short of an overt, quantifiably harmful action or behavior (in effect, you can only complain if you have the proverbial "receipts")
• Refusing to ever entertain any form of criticism or player concern while in session, regardless of the player's reason
• "My way or the highway"-ism, where player criticism or concern is met with a near-instant "if you don't like it, you can always leave" response

It’s important to recognize that this is a two-way street. What you’re describing highlights real problems that can originate with a referee, but that’s only half the equation. The other half is: how do we tell when a player is being unreasonable toward the referee?

In my leadership training, both in and outside of gaming, I didn’t just learn what not to do as a leader. I also learned how to identify when issues are arising from within the group itself, and what to do when one of the group members is contributing to the problem.

In my experience, table issues tend to fall into one of three broad categories:

• The problem originates with the referee.
• The problem originates with the player(s).
• The problem arises from both sides contributing to a breakdown.

All three happen. In fact, I’ve seen each many times. That said, most of the time when something goes wrong, it involves players, not because players are inherently less reasonable than referees, but simply because there are more of them. One referee, five or six players: odds are, the source of disruption lies somewhere on the player side, just by numbers alone.

And this isn’t just a tabletop roleplaying issue. In any leadership context, whether running a table, a team, or an organization, clarity, consistency, and transparency are the foundation of good leadership. Without them, people lose confidence in the process, and communication breaks down on all sides.

Specific to tabletop RPGs, this is why good refereeing is so important. Even if it isn’t based on a written rulebook, it still needs to be transparent and consistent, so that players can understand how decisions are made and what to expect in similar situations. That kind of consistency builds trust over time.

 

[Faolyn]

Are you asserting there aren't dramatically more players than DMs--such that there isn't a shortage?

Are you asserting that nearly all players always have a long, established history with their players before a campaign begins? (If so, how can that established history have occurred when they're starting their first campaign???)

Are you asserting that trust never needs to be built nor maintained? Because that's what people have been telling me they haven't been asserting for a while now, and it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for an assertion that was apparently 100% one direction for the thread up to this point to suddenly reverse.

What do any of those things have to do with what Micah said?

It doesn't matter what the ratio of players to GMs is. We know from the real world that minority groups can abuse majority groups if the minority groups are in power.

You can game with a total stranger who is a great GM. You can game with an abusive GM for years because of Geek Social Fallacies. You can also know someone for a long time before you ever start gaming with them.

What Micah is saying is that the majority of GMs aren't demanding that players trust them in all things and never question them, even though for some reason, you seem to be fixated on that idea.

 

[Faolyn]

Have you not seen the NUMEROUS times people refer to an "objective" world, to being forced by the setting to make a decision, to having "realism" limit their actions (but as soon as this is questioned, we see that "realism" is barely even a limitation at all)?

Citations needed. Because I've talked about that quite a bit and never once said anyone was forced by the setting to make a decision, and I haven't seen anyone else say that either.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It’s important to recognize that this is a two-way street. What you’re describing highlights real problems that can originate with a referee, but that’s only half the equation. The other half is: how do we tell when a player is being unreasonable toward the referee?

I mean, sure, but the player isn't the one laying claim to power and leadership and expecting trust. There's a reason greater expectations are placed on those who claim authority.

In my leadership training, both in and outside of gaming, I didn’t just learn what not to do as a leader. I also learned how to identify when issues are arising from within the group itself, and what to do when one of the group members is contributing to the problem.

In my experience, table issues tend to fall into one of three broad categories:

• The problem originates with the referee.
• The problem originates with the player(s).
• The problem arises from both sides contributing to a breakdown.

All three happen. In fact, I’ve seen each many times. That said, most of the time when something goes wrong, it involves players, not because players are inherently less reasonable than referees, but simply because there are more of them. One referee, five or six players: odds are, the source of disruption lies somewhere on the player side, just by numbers alone.

And this isn’t just a tabletop roleplaying issue. In any leadership context, whether running a table, a team, or an organization, clarity, consistency, and transparency are the foundation of good leadership. Without them, people lose confidence in the process, and communication breaks down on all sides.

This only counts if we look at cases. If we instead look at how much effect a problematic action has, DMs engaging in problematic behavior have far greater impact than players engaging in problematic behavior, even if we assume DMs are significantly better than players on average. Because when a DM does something hinky (again, not necessarily bad, just questionable/concerning), it usually affects everyone at the table, while a single player doing something hinky may only affect the DM, not anyone else.

Which just links back to what I said above: the DM in this context has enormous power and control over the situation, especially because things like social contracts and relationships make the endlessly-repeated "just leave" response nowhere near as easy as people think it is. (It turns out, cutting and running when you have a problem with someone's behavior, even if it is objectively a problem, has significant social costs that can't actually be ignored!) The DM, in this playstyle context, has much more power and many more ways for their behavior to lead to problems than the players could ever have.

If the player takes 100 actions that could potentially be done problematically in a given session (I am not assuming they ARE problematic, just saying they COULD be), then even if there are 5 players taking such actions, they'll still be outnumbered by the DM if that DM is taking 1000 actions that could potentially be done problematically in a given session (I am not assuming they ARE problematic, just saying they COULD be)--indeed, by a two-to-one margin. And since players literally cannot do anything without having first received DM input, every player action is preceded by the DM doing something first, alongside however many things the DM did that the player can't see.

Specific to tabletop RPGs, this is why good refereeing is so important. Even if it isn’t based on a written rulebook, it still needs to be transparent and consistent, so that players can understand how decisions are made and what to expect in similar situations. That kind of consistency builds trust over time.

But that's exactly the issue, it ISN'T transparent, by intent! There's a reason I keep bringing up the "black box". Black box DMing is inherently not transparent. It cannot be transparent, otherwise it wouldn't be black-boxing anything.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, is it? According to the people in this thread, the alleged game-on-offer is one where things are supposed to make sense, where plausibility/probability/reasonableness/etc. etc. are supposed to be of the highest priority, higher even than "are the players having fun" (as was explicitly articulated upthread), functionally the single highest priority of the campaign.

Who said that? If the group isn't having fun, the game is being played wrong. It's about the only way to play it wrong.

 

[Lanefan]

Have you not, yourself, been one of the people to articulate that sometimes, for the fun to be fun, we must take it seriously? That there need to be times where we aren't, technically, having fun, in order for the fun to really be there at all?

Because that's where I'm at with this. I know I am a serious person (sort of. I'm often very silly in-person, but when I put on my serious pants I go full-bore serious, and I will turn on a dime between the two.) A good TTRPG requires both silliness and seriousness, "all in fun" and "deep story and pathos and [etc.]", in order for me to really get full enjoyment out of it. Stuff that is just unrelentingly silly is a major turn-off. Stuff that never lets anything unserious happen is equally bad but, at least for me, harder to spot.

I agree there needs to be a mix of both in play. When talking about taking it seriously, though, I was referring to out-of-game.

I mean, is it? According to the people in this thread, the alleged game-on-offer is one where things are supposed to make sense, where plausibility/probability/reasonableness/etc. etc. are supposed to be of the highest priority, higher even than "are the players having fun" (as was explicitly articulated upthread), functionally the single highest priority of the campaign.

If you find your players are repeatedly having a problem with what you've done, does that mean it's a them problem? Or does it mean you're failing to live up to the game you offered to run?

If multiple players have multiple problems over time then sure, I gotta take a long hard look in the mirror. No argument there.

If-when it's just one player, however, and everyone else is rollin' along just fine (or, worse, can't understand why the one player is repeatedly having problems) then it ain't me that needs to check the mirror.

But that's not what people actually say when you bring up examples. In order for it to be "good enough", the players must trust for literal months on end--possibly half a year--without ANY evidence beyond "trust me". That sure as hell ain't what I would call "good enough". That's taking things on blind faith with the hope of maybe, possibly, someday, getting an explanation, all the while having to be blown about by what seems like the winds of change and chance, because things actually making sense is deferred for literal months at a time.

Well, all I can say to this is that for the most part it's worked for our diverse lot for about 45-and-counting years now (I've been in for 43 of those). That said, the first few years were a lot more wild-west and while a lot (and I mean a lot!) of fun was had it's fairly safe to say trust was in short supply in all directions. Player-vs-GM and player-vs-player was far more common. Sometimes characters were there too.

The other thing to note is that I'm a far more experienced (not saying better, just been at it longer!) DM now than I was in 1987 and am thus slightly better able to foresee problems before the fuse gets lit.

Things I would consider suspicious DM behavior:

• Zero-discussion refusal to permit what other participants see as a reasonable, warranted course of action, doubly so if coupled with refusal to explain beyond "it will make sense eventually, please wait 3-6 business months"

This is different than what I at least have been talking about, that being at-the-time inexplicable in-game events or situations that may or may not impact PC actions. The water-above-the-stairs piece, for example, never affected anyone's actions as their only interaction with it was to look up the shaft, see some fishmen smiling down at them through the water, and because of the fishmen's presence decide not to go that way.

• Surprising players with obstacles or dangers that should have been knowable or foreseeable, but which somehow went unnoticed until the moment they actually blocked something or caused harm or led to an ambush etc.

I do this all the time, largely because "should have been knowable or foreseeable" still doesn't mean they're necessarily going to know it or foresee it if the perception dice (or their lack of preparation) dictate otherwise. And yes, in situations like that I'm more than happy to be a 'gotcha' DM.

• Failure to be consistent with past adjudication, especially if each issue is functionally adjudicated as though for the first time (which is, IMO, the almost-guaranteed result of nearly-but-not-quite-all "rulings, not rules" paradigms*)

Agree fully on the adjudication-consistency piece but disagree that it's caused by rulings-not-rules. A good DM turns rulings into rules and thus preserves consistency going forward.

• "Explaining" a situation in such a way that only one valid course of action is permitted, even though many others should have been possible but just aren't for some reason that the players aren't allowed to know
• Keeping essential information black-boxed, or (more irritatingly) locking it behind excessively over-detailed required questions, such that the DM can then say "well you never ASKED" as an excuse
• Dismissing player feedback and concerns as not being worthy of attention, or (MUCH worse) even being outright harmful to the campaign
• Arbitrary decision-making, especially when the decision in question unavoidably leads to negative consequences the player(s) would have avoided, or at least tried to avoid, if they knew about it in advance

These are just variants on the first three.

• Expecting expansive, pervasive trust for anything short of an overt, quantifiably harmful action or behavior (in effect, you can only complain if you have the proverbial "receipts")

I thnk it's right and proper for trust to work on an innocent until proven guilty basis.

• Refusing to ever entertain any form of criticism or player concern while in session, regardless of the player's reason

This one's very situation-dependent. Some concerns need to be sorted right now. Other more minor ones can wait, and still other non-legitimate concerns (e.g. "You hit my character with every swing!" when my dice run hot) I'll ignore.

• "My way or the highway"-ism, where player criticism or concern is met with a near-instant "if you don't like it, you can always leave" response

My game, my rules. I've got loads of player-accessible material explaining the type of game I tend to run, it's not like there's no warning.

*For context, Lanefan, I consider your approach to not even actually BE "rulings, not rules". Your approach, as far as I'm concerned, is actually "my rules, not those rules". They're still rules, and you expect yourself to abide by them. They just might not be 1:1 matching up with the rules the publisher wrote down in their book--but you still write them down in some book, somewhere, and the players are free to read and learn them just as they could any other written rules. You are, to the best of my knowledge, the only person who lays claim to the "rulings, not rules" mantle who does this to this extent.

It's more "rulings become rules"; and yes, the significant ones or ones that are likely to reappear often do get added to the game rules.

"Rulings, not rules" has always meant, to me, that "rules" as such don't really exist. There are no rules. There's just what the DM says today. They might say something different next week. They might not. That's for next-week-DM to decide; right now you have today-DM saying what makes sense to today-DM. Though generally next-week-DM and today-DM agree pretty well. The bigger issue is today-DM vs six-months-from-now-DM. They might as well be completely different people, for all the good it'll do you knowing what today-DM has told you.

And IMO that's bad DMing. Rulings not rules to me frees up the DM to adjudicate things that go outside the written rules in whatever way she wants - the first time. After that, IMO she's bound by her initial ruling just as if it's in the rulebook.

Rulings not rules also helps keep the rulebooks down to a weight most people can manage to carry.

I would have probably thought it was really weird and asked, "Hey, is there some kind of magic or supernatural power keeping the water out?" or the like. I can generally anticipate that such an obviously unphysical behavior has to have a supernatural source. But maybe it's just a quirk of air pressure in this world, or something like that. A lampshade would do for such a comparatively minor issue.

I think the main response in play here amounted to "Huh. That's cool." before they moved on to other things.

The kinds of issues I'm talking about relate to player decisions and PC-affecting consequences. Hence the examples I've given. In a campaign where "realism"(/plausibility/reasonability/etc. etc.) is meant to be THE deciding factor, THE prime motivator over and above all other things, I'm going to have pretty high requirements about being given enough details to make an informed decision. I had thought such a thing was inherent in the very premise: the details will matter, they will be consistent, they will adhere to what you as a player know (either from our Earth, or from what the players have learned or got ample, real, non-gotcha, no-BS opportunities to learn and just failed to put in even a modicum of effort)

From me you'll get consistency and it'll be realistic-adjacent until-unless fantasy element dictate otherwise.

That said, there's going to be lots and lots of times you don't have and don't get precise accurate information*, in part because that too is realistic. Sometimes in reality there's very little difference between "informed decision" and "educated guess"; I see the game world as working similarly.

* - e.g. were I running 5e I would never give the numeric DC but would describe the situation and relative difficulty as it pertains to the character thinking of trying it. Climbing a steep rocky bank would be described as trivially easy to the Ranger but as a serious challenge to the spindly Wizard.