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

[EzekielRaiden]

That depends on the context. If everything is the best ever, then nothing is the best ever is true. Everything is equal, so nothing is the best ever.

Technically, that is incorrect. Instead, it would simply be that everything has the same rank--that rank just happens to be the highest possible rank. That doesn't mean everything isn't best. It just means "best" is not distinctive anymore.

And that's literally the logical trap the original statement relies on. It conflates two different meanings of "super", namely, "has certain powerful abilities" ("When everyone is super...") with "is specially distinct because of their abilities" ("...then no one will be.") It's a direct example of the fallacy of equivocation.

With the vast majority of qualities we could use in this structure, it'll produce nonsense. "Tasty", for example, or "red", or "helpful", or "kind", or "angry", etc. It's actually quite rare for any quality to work in such a structure, and it generally relies on some form of distinctiveness, e.g. it would be correct (but not particularly revelatory) to say "when everyone is an outlier, no one will be"--not because they've stopped being the values they are, but because if ALL your data points are outliers, you've screwed up your data analysis in some way and need to figure out what went wrong, that is, at least some will stop being outliers when you correct the mistake. (My guess would be you have an extremely bimodal data set that you incorrectly presumed would not be bimodal.)

However, if everything is hydrogen, nothing is hydrogen is clearly false.

Exactly. Try this with the vast majority of other qualities a thing can have--even ones that in fact mean something is great or wonderful--and it remains clearly false. "When everything is perfectly efficient, nothing will be", for example, is total nonsense.

The phrase only gets any airtime at all because people buy into the fallacious equivocation that Syndrome was banking on.

Note: I didn't see the context he used that quote in, so I don't know whether it was true or false.

I have not either, so I can't say either way. But nobody should be basing their argument on Syndrome's thing anyway. It simply invites criticism you could have avoided by just not using it. Even if you are using it in one of the extremely rare cases where it works, it's often less revelatory than just...saying the actual truth revealed.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Which is utterly irrelevant as the vast, vast, VAST majority of the setting doesn't get interacted with by the players. Only a small portion does and they put out as much or more as that small part of the setting.

It absolutely is not, when all the stuff in that black box is LITERALLY what people are using to justify their GM decision-making. Which is what has been said in the thread. Repeatedly.

But again, nothing matters that the players don't encounter or those few things that happen as part of a living world. The overwhelming majority of the setting will be silent.

Doesn't matter if it "will be silent" or not. It's the overwhelming majority of the context for what the GM will decide to do. Even in cases where we aren't talking about the whole setting, this kind of GM always--100% guaranteed always--knows far, far, far more than the players ever could. The players only "know" (with quotes, because sometimes the GM will deceive them, not because they're being a jerk, but because, say, a Wizard casts an illusion spell and they fail their save to realize it's an illusion) what the GM speaks aloud. All the myriad things they never speak aloud cannot possibly be known to the players, not even in principle--but continue to be context for the GM's decisions.

Yeah. I've seen levels of realism that I would never even attempt, because they aren't necessary, but if they want to put in that sort of work, more power to them. It still doesn't change the fact that the players will never see or interact with the vast majority of that setting. Or the fact that the player input on the small portion they do interact with is oversized compared to that small portion of the setting.

The players will never know the vast majority of information about the places they actually do go and see and touch and act within.

And yet those things remain THE context, far and away moreso than anything the players could possibly do. Because, again, the GM has the world in THEIR head. The players only get the drip-feed of what few things pass out of the GM's lips.

 

[SableWyvern]

Which is utterly irrelevant as the vast, vast, VAST majority of the setting doesn't get interacted with by the players. Only a small portion does and they put out as much or more as that small part of the setting.

But again, nothing matters that the players don't encounter or those few things that happen as part of a living world. The overwhelming majority of the setting will be silent.

Some of this stuff seems to come back to @AbdulAlhazred's assumption that if the GM creates something, they'll make sure the players encounter it, but that is simply not the case if the GM is actually following the principles we're talking about.

Plenty of stuff I've put work into simply gets ignored by my players when I'm running a sandbox. Sometimes I'm even disappointed by that (yes, I have my own feelings and interests). But I don't let my disappointment dictate what happens; if the players aren't interested, then it is what it is. I focus instead on the things the PCs are interested in, the things they have decided to do and the places they have decided to go. And, because I do so, when I look back on the game, I am likely to be much happier when I see the ways in which my expectations were subverted and the strange and unexpected places the players chose to take the game. Forcing specific directions on the players wouldn't just be a derogation of my duty, it would result in less overall fun for me.

 

[Maxperson]

It absolutely is not, when all the stuff in that black box is LITERALLY what people are using to justify their GM decision-making. Which is what has been said in the thread. Repeatedly.

That claim is literally impossible. Also taken out of context. The context of what they said is that everything in the setting is available to make decisions with, not that they consider the entirety(or even remotely close to it) of the setting when they make a decision.

The overwhelming majority of decisions even those people who made that claim make, will only be taking into account the locality that the PCs are in. Once in a while something they do will reverberate further, but at that point it's still the PCs causing the wide ripple, not the DM.

 

[Lanefan]

OK, now you are just inventing a scenario that proves your point. The thing is, in order to do so, you've assumed the GM isn't actually following the principles we're espousing. So, of course it doesn't work out the way I or others have been saying our games work.

How about, no, these things don't need to happen. The PCs might never even go the bandit region. And, if they do, the whole point of having encounters randomised so that the unexpected might happen. If the PCs don't seek out the bandits and the bandits don't show up in an encounter and the PCs don't interfere with their plans, then the bandits will just remain a backdrop. The PCs show up, do what they were there for and they leave. No bandit encounter is necessary or mandatory.

And maybe six months later the PCs hear tales about some other band of adventurers who took out a bunch of bandits out that way during the summer, and made the region a whole lot safer.

 

[Lanefan]

"In comparison" is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting here. The assertion was not "absolute power to do whatever I like with the rules, whenever I like, for as long as I like". It was "some potential for DIY". You have changed the standard to something extreme. So: I would appreciate either a recognition that the original point remains (even though I wasn't even talking about "the WotC editions", I was talking about PbtA games) and that this is now a new and different standard being applied...or I'd appreciate the recognition that you have just moved the goalposts.

You were, I thought, referring to 4e D&D at the time.

None of the WotC editions have much potential for serious DIY or kitbashing unless one wants to rebuild the system from the ground up. I came to this conclusion with each one after buying its initial three books and then reading them in a kitbasher's frame of mind: how can I tweak or alter or mash this system into something I'd want to run and-or play.

But note the "usually". Even there, it's not guaranteed safe. Rip out the wrong thing, and it will still cause issues. Which things are the wrong things? I doubt even you know all of them, despite your formidible experience.

And I never mentioned anything about guarantees. Any kitbashing of any kind is and always will be in large part a work of trial and error, even with systems that by their design make such things easier to do.

It's a lot more possible than you seem to think. Further, if the game is designed transparently--which at least one of "the WotC editions" was--then you can almost always see the problems with a rules change before you even implement it.

Agreed that you can see the problems, and there's loads of 'em. All that does is strongly discourage doing anything to the rules, which is doubtless just what the designers want but maybe not what every table wants.

I'll grant that a game built out of 17 utterly disconnected subsystems is less likely to have knock-on effects if you change one of them. I don't grant that having interconnected subsystems is therefore a bad thing, nor an impingement upon the ability to have "some potential for DIY". Even you recognize there are some landmines in early-edition D&D if you rip out the wrong things--and I very much doubt you would ever claim that which things that's true of are easy to spot even for an experienced DM.

Again, comes back to trial and error.

The advantage we have today over 45 years ago is the ability to go online and fairly quickly find what others have tried, along with some general outcomes of those trials, meaning there's a lot less wheel-reinvention required.

 

[SableWyvern]

And maybe six months later the PCs hear tales about some other band of adventurers who took out a bunch of bandits out that way during the summer, and made the region a whole lot safer.

Indeed. Or the bandits have become emboldened and completely disrupted trade, or taken over a town or who knows.

The PCs not interacting with features can have implications and consequences, just as interacting can. And maybe those consequences will affect them, or maybe they won't.

 

[Lanefan]

First, I use the Forgotten Realms. Someone else wrote it. But even if I did, craptons of stuff gets decided based on at worst a collaboration. It's not me deciding everything. That's simply not possible in a roleplaying game where the players can do things.

It's what I wrote + player input = what happens.

You missed a step:

It's what I wrote + beer + player input = what happens.

 

[SableWyvern]

Again, comes back to trial and error.

I'm always very confused about objections to houseruling and tinkering on the basis that things might not work out.

So you change something and it doesn't work they way you wanted or causes some unexpected issue. What are those consequences? A mild disruption to a game of make-believe? So you learn from the outcome, make further changes and move on. The way you get good at avoiding major pitfalls is, as you say, experience born of trial and error.

Sometimes, the things I do don't quite work out, but I can consistently avoid egregious issues because of decades of experience with a variety of rule systems and a willingness to tinker with them.

And if some egregious issue did show up? We'd deal with it, fix it, and the game would continue.

 

[AnotherGuy]

And maybe six months later the PCs hear tales about some other band of adventurers who took out a bunch of bandits out that way during the summer, and made the region a whole lot safer.

As created by the DM...