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

[EzekielRaiden]

So all setting creation is story creation? The two words are synonyms?

As far as I'm concerned, yes. It may be story background creation, but it is still story creation. You're creating the story of the world, in which a variety of other stories may occur. Often, the "breaks" in said story-of-the-world are artificial, lines drawn by people because they want clear separation. But fantasy (and sci-fi) often allows these lines to be far sharper, e.g. the fall of Netheril in a singular act.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

People tend to write a lot of things, that's true. Doesn't mean I have to buy in to every new term someone invents.

Also I would think that a DM would have a rather high opinion of themselves if they thought they could consistently and faultlessly outwit 4-5 other people for a sustained period. I find most players are highly intelligent, and can pretty quickly figure out that they're being deceived. A clever and charismatic DM might keep the charade up for a while, but it wouldn't last forever.

We had a thread where I made exactly this argument. It was repeatedly rejected or ignored.

You may peruse that thread if you like. Or this one, from around the same time, talking about a parallel thing. Or this much, much older thread.

There are a number of DMs out there who think they can maintain this illusion indefinitely.

 

[SableWyvern]

You get to claim that you're doing something that is different. You're sandboxing. Not just running a game, but, a special and unique kind of game that only those privileged enough to comprehend the beauty of the process can truly perform. The fact that what you're doing is pretty much exactly the same as what every other DM out there does must be challenged with obfuscation and jargon. We're not creating stories, we writing "drama". We're not deciding events based on anything so plebeian or crass as whatever the table might enjoy. No. We are basing events on the "logic of the setting". On and on and on.

Sorry to dredge this back up, but I have been thinking about this post after a recent exchange.

There are a number of trad sandboxers in this thread who have stated they see a lot of similarities between what they do and the principles outlined in Blades in the Dark. This has gained a reasonable amount of pushback from the strongly narrativist clique.

Specifically, I stated that I found Play to Find Out, as described in Blades, to be philosophically very similar to the general concept of emergent story and general concepts I've adhered to for quite some time. This resulted in numerous people strongly and moderately aligned with narrativism to rush to tell me these things are completely different. Someone, possibly @Hussar, went so far as to tell me emergent story isn't even possible in the games I run.

A short while ago, I commented that the way @pemerton describes scene framing sounds very similar to the way I view setting development. Pemerton promptly replied to assure me that these two things are completely different and I'm wrong to see them as at all similar.

I recall @robertsconley commenting on several occasions that our objectives seem similar, and it's really just the methods that are different.

So, from where I'm sitting, it's not the trad sandboxers who are trying to claim something utterly unique. We do see plenty of points of similarity.

It's the narrativists who seem to me to be most prone to rejecting any attempt to find common ground and arguing at every step that their processes are unique and special and not like anything anyone else does.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think what @EzekielRaiden was getting at is @Kromanjon could have then engaged in illusionism and had the continent come into view soon after they turned, or had a storm come up and had the players roll for a random direction the ship was driven, and surprise surprise, it happened to be in the direction of the continent.

I'm not sure what the point really was, since Kromanjon obviously didn't do that in his example, but some DM somewhere could have done that.

My point was to ask, "Okay, so the players made that decision. What happens to prevent you from doing <blah blah blah>?" where <blah blah blah> is what you described here.

When the GM controls both all possible information that goes into player decision-making, and all possible results that are produced by player decision-making, what limit did those player decisions place on the GM? As far as I can tell: none! The ship's gonna have to land sooner or later, they'll run out of water or people to cannibalize. And as soon as they do, we get the quantum ogre er quantum haunted house UM distant continent where something interesting is happening, yeah, that's it. (I am trying to inject some levity. Not sure if I'm succeeding.)

 

[Kromanjon]

We had a thread where I made exactly this argument. It was repeatedly rejected or ignored.

You may peruse that thread if you like. Or this one, from around the same time, talking about a parallel thing. Or this much, much older thread.

There are a number of DMs out there who think they can maintain this illusion indefinitely.

Well I, for one, agree with this. As for GM limitations, how about the social contract, does that do anything for you?

 

[AnotherGuy]

There are a number of DMs out there who think they can maintain this illusion indefinitely.

DMs who can do this indefinitely either
(a) Have players who do not know any better
(b) Do not know better themselves.

This, I suspect, happens mostly with homogenous tables who do not get any exposure.
I experienced one such group such as this during my time as a player when 4e came out.

EDIT: Adjusted per my posts with @SableWyvern

 

[SableWyvern]

DMs who can do this indefinitely either
(a) Have the buy-in from players who do not know any better

If they have buy-in from the players and everyone is having fun, there is no need for the "who don't know any better" suffix. If everyone is on board, there is nothing inherently wrong with illusionism.

It's not my thing these days (and I stopped using it when I realised it made the game feel hollow for me), but there have been some cultures of play where it's been openly and vigorously advocated for. GM Law for Rolemaster Standard System has a whole section extolling the virtues of illusionism. While I happen to feel like it's very bad GM advice, for some people, it just works, perhaps in the same way you know a magician is lying to you, but it's still OK (conversely, my sister in law hates magic being done on her, because she knows it's a lie and feels like she is being made a fool of).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well I, for one, agree with this. As for GM limitations, how about the social contract, does that do anything for you?

Is it spoken aloud? Or is it all soft-touch implication, presumed details, and unstated expectations?

Because illusionism is fully compatible--by its own lights, I mean--with a social contract where the players merely have the unsaid expectation that their choices matter. The GM is giving them the feeling that their choices matter, even though those choices really don't, in one manner or another.

As noted above, the "quantum ogre"/"quantum haunted house" is a common example; others include:

• non-choices that masquerade as choices ("you can go on this awesome adventure....OR DIE" is a blatant one but more subtle versions exist)
• false choices (e.g. choosing to help A instead of B gives the appearance of mattering, but it just swaps the labels of who will help you later on)
• cold reading (infamously used by self-proclaimed mentalists/psychics/etc. to make it seem like they have powers, when all they're doing is high-probability guessing and moving quickly away from any missteps)
• superficial choices that seem to matter but don't (e.g. whether to travel somewhere by land or by sea; the GM might reflavor "bandits" as "sahuagin" or vice-versa depending on which was the original preparation), or
• choices that "matter" but in a way that doesn't really...matter, if you know what I mean (e.g. whether you save a friendly NPC's life--they're still around and appreciative but the fact they lived or died doesn't carry any further than that they lived or died)
• providing one or two early choices that really DO matter, albeit only a bit, only to then taper off such things once a feeling of "my choices matter" has developed (e.g. what Chrono Trigger does with the kidnapping trial--there your choices technically matter a little bit, but don't actually change the outcome...and from there on your choices do not matter, apart from one or two "side" things that have no direct effect on the story)

I'm sure there are more ways to pull off illusionism. These are just ones that come to mind.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

DMs who can do this indefinitely either
(a) Have the buy-in from players who do not know any better
(b) Do not know better themselves.

This, I suspect, happens mostly with homogenous tables who do not get any exposure.
I experienced one such group such as this during my time as a player when 4e came out.

Certainly. I have very specifically mentioned GMs who think what they are doing is good or right or necessary or expected, even if it isn't. I could go back and dig up examples if you like, but I suspect you don't care that much.

That said, I think you're missing a third option: players that haven't actually bought into it, but don't know the difference. Still an example of lack of exposure. But when I made even the most mild suggestions of that above, oh boy, people got REALLY REALLY mad. So expect a bit of that directed at you now, I'm afraid.

 

[SableWyvern]

I said I wouldn't engage, but here I am again ...

@EzekielRaiden

You are asking what protections you have against a GM who intentionally or inadvertently railroads you, if you play a game where the GM has the power to intentionally or inadvertently railroads you.

The answer is, you have none. If you play in such a game, there is a risk that this will happen. Most of us who play this way seem to find the risk to be extremely low to completely insignificant, but only you can assess what is an acceptable level of risk to you.

There is no other answer.

A GM could railroad you, whether secretly and maliciously, or accidentally while being well-meaning. The only way to guarantee this doesn't happen is to not play in the styles of play where you fear this is a possibility. You don't seem to like this or want to accept it, but it is the absolute truth and no one has any other answer for you. We can try and explain why the risk doesn't concern us, but cannot make the risk vanish.

I honestly and genuinely do not understand what more you're looking for here. Do you want us all to start a campaign to end this style of play and prevent anyone from ever running games this way again, just to ensure you never get accidentally caught in such a game? Do you expect us to all announce to our tables that play in this style must cease? If not, what is it that you want? What is the outcome you're looking for? What could I do that would would satisfy you (noting that I cannot change reality such that a GM with the power to secretly railroad you is prevented from doing so)?