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

[Micah Sweet]

Yes you are. You make normative statements all the time about “how most games work” and “what most games include”.

You present your very traditional ideas as the norm and anything else as some kind of exception to the norm. Rather than just two approaches to RPGs that are equally valid. To be fair, I don’t even think it’s something you mean to do. I just think it’s so ingrained that you do it by default. This is why, when it’s pointed out to you, you don’t even realize what people are criticizing. That’s how it seems from what you say in your posts.

And you insist on knowing my preferences. Despite the fact that I very clearly enjoy trad games as well. I’ve made numerous references to my Mothership campaign. I ran it for about a year. I have played and run plenty of 5e D&D. The vast majority of my RPG experience is with some form of traditional play.

You aren’t in a position to tell me my preferences.

That I am able to describe the kind of sandbox play you’ve described as GM led because it is a vehicle to highlight GM prepared material has nothing to do with amy preference I have. It is simply me being able to look at what play consists of and how the material in play is determined, and describe it accurately. Without regard to any preference I have.

If I didn’t enjoy that kind of game, I wouldn’t play or run that kind of game, at least not at any significant length.

I don't doubt that you enjoy traditional games, but your arguments always seem to keep coming down on the side of the Narrativists. Lots of "likes" on Narrativist-supporting posts, for example. You do that long enough you're going to get pigeonholed.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Then I can still say I've never had a GM with bad intentions. They may not have been good GMs but actively out to make the game less than fun for their players? No and while in theory it could happen this idea of actively running a bad game is a strawman. A GM that doesn't work for me? That happens now and then.

You're still not getting it; they think they're trying to run a good game. In some cases they just aren't paying attention, in others they've bought into an idea of what that constitutes that is actively destructive unfun for a lot of people a significant amount of time, mostly because there's this persistent top-down view of GMing.

It doesn't matter what you think you're doing; if you're causing a bad game for people a significant amount of time, and its happening because of things you're doing deliberately, your intentions are malign. The fact you don't think so could not be less relevant. And its extremely obvious its deliberate because of the completely hostile way anyone challenging or even suggesting challenging a GM decision gets referred to.

To do otherwise requires looking at the experience your players are having, sometimes even making extra effort to see it (since many players are passively or actively taught not to rock boat), and responding to it. And there are plenty of GMs who can't or won't do that. I'm not going to say they're a majority, because there's no way to say one way or another (I'd like to think not) but it runs like a thread through the hobby or I wouldn't have seen and heard as much about it over the years.

 

[Micah Sweet]

@Bedrockgames

The way you are boxing us in is by addressing all RPG play via reference to conventional D&D play and treating any breaks from that as something unusual that bears special inspection rather than as thoroughly normal play that deserves as much respect. You are placing the burden on us to describe less conventional play via conventional mores. You are also using definitions of railroading, agency and especially system that are not inclusive and do not consider less conventional play. It basically makes conventional D&D play the standard for what an RPG is (which I think is horse hockey).

If you are going to address roleplaying games broadly than it is on you to show some awareness and respect for less conventional play if you are expecting respect for your play.

You might not mean to be disrespectful, but expecting discussion to start from a normative baseline that centers a particular set of styles and particular structures of play is decidedly no bueno (and fundamentally erases less conventional play from the conversation of roleplaying games in the general sense).

How exactly are you supposed to discuss RPGs broadly when there are no agreed upon definitions for anything, just vague terms to which people attach positive or and/or negative feelings?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Respect is a two way street and I do not feel like it has been extended int he other direction. I think you guys are so accustomed to talking a certain way about games you don't realize how condescending it sounds sometimes and how hubristic it comes across as also when you act as if you alone have cracked the code of how processes in games break down

That is my impression as well. A lot of Narrativist talk reads as arrogant to me. Probably unintentionally, but that's how I feel.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And I think you start from a place where your play sets the norm and we have earn our right to be part of the conversation (and pretty much the overall hobby). I think you do not realize how condescending you sound yourself. You certainly seem content stepping back while our right to our play preferences are questioned on normative grounds. Page after page of our play being called self-centered never got your intercession.

There's no requirement in a discussion like this to be an activist, championing every point of view someone feels is being attacked. There have been a lot of attacks on play considered to be a sandbox style by traditional and classic players, and I don't see anyone defending it except its proponents.

 

[Zardnaar]

Agreed.

The only time I'll do any serious on-the-fly nerfing is if someone finds a broken exploit or loophole that'll ruin the game if left as is.

Even then I'll deal with it between sessions.

 

[zakael19]

Is anything that isn't Narrativist-leaning one kind of game?

I don't think that AP play = OSR play = WoD play = CoC /DG play = whatever else you want throw out there, without falling into the "all TTRPGs (except those Narrativist people) are just the same" hole.

 

[robertsconley]

Sandbox isn’t about game design. It is about adventure structure. You can make or have a system intended to be more sandbox friendly but it ultimately comes from play style and adventure/campaign structure

That is correct I use a system of rules to adjudicate specific actions the players do as their characters in my living world sandbox campaigns. I don't use it a game with objectives, or victory experience. Experience is earned as a result of the players role-playing their characters and achieving goals they not I set.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think that AP play = OSR play = WoD play = CoC /DG play = whatever else you want throw out there, without falling into the "all TTRPGs (except those Narrativist people) are just the same" hole.

I don't agree with that either, but that's the impression I got from the remarks to which I responded.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've not seem that presumption by a single person in other than those speaking out against DM authority. Not one person on my side of this discussion has said that. At least not in the posts that I've read. Admittedly, I've missed about a few dozen pages.

Can you link someone saying those things?

I mean, do I need to?

There has been a clear and consistent pattern of the DM needs to be given massive leeway--essentially unlimited trust--up until the point they've gone so egregious you can just write them off as a jerk, at which point everyone just says "don't play with jerks".

There has not, as far as I can tell, ever been an example of someone taking seriously the idea that there are states between these points. Every time I bring it up, it gets outright dismissed with "don't play with jerks" or various variations thereof--as though the only possible problem is inherently bad people ("jerks"), and everyone else will never be a problem so just trust them for goodness' sake!!!