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

[EzekielRaiden]

<facepalm> Please read the actual blankity-blank condition. It does not alter the thoughts of the character at all, not even remotely. From Roll20:

View attachment 405867

Show me where thoughts are altered. Show me where a character is made unable to act at all for several turns because of it.

I am not talking about the condition.

I am talking about the mental state called "frightened", which is explicitly the result of having the Frightened condition.

Are you asserting that fright has absolutely nothing whatever to do with thoughts?

Because the original comment LITERALLY DID ASSERT THAT. That is LITERALLY the standard that was used--that it was an unacceptable instance of telling the player what their character thinks or does as the result of a failed roll.

Likewise, the fact that things without minds cannot be frightened, even though they can still have all of the above game mechanical effects apply to them. E.g. most constructs--being mere automata--are immune to the frightened condition, even though all it does is the listed mechanical effects. That quite clearly means "frightened" includes mental state elements, aka, THOUGHTS.

 

[Hussar]

That's missing the point. This isn't about what options the players have to choose from on what they will pursue next, I will do my best to make those choices interesting and engaging. If they end up in a situation that's boring we'll likely just narrate it possibly with some back-and-forth for a few minutes. The characters may waste months of time in-world but we're not going to waste game time.

It also means that some super-fun scenarios may never occur. That's fine because there will always be other options and opportunities.

You're right, this has nothing to do with the players.

This is about how the DM decides what is "plausible" and how the DM chooses. Like you say straight up, you will do your best to make those choices interesting and engaging. All good DM's will do that.

But, that's contrary to the idea that the world runs on its own logic and results from events should follow from what is most plausible. You are choosing results and events because they make a fun game. Fantastic. That's just being a good DM. But, @robertsconley is very insistent that his decision making process is completely divorced from what he thinks would make an "interesting" event. That everything that happens is based on the logic of the setting.

Which, to me, is just not accurately describing how a DM will make a decision.

 

[Hussar]

The thing is it isn’t this binary. So long as the GM is picking the most plausible outcome, even if they have narrowed it down to one or two and then gone with the one that is both fun and plausible, it isn’t a problem. You are trying to avoid doing things simply because they are fun, dramatic or cool for that moment.

Totally agree. Every good DM should do this.

But to my earlier point I think you are underestimating the popularity of wanting things to follow a kind of naturalism in this style. Now to be clear I don’t even cleave to this because I personally don’t find it fun, but I would say there is a sizeable portion of sandbox fans, perhaps even a majority who would be naturally suspicious of the fun option, and lean on the most plausible and naturalistic one. A lot of what drives this play is a sincere effort to avoid railroads, adventure paths and 90s style ‘storyteller’ play. So many people who talk about sandbox and in particular living world have staked out positions favoring very naturalistic campaigns because they are wary of things introduced by the Gm that have any sense of artifice to them (this is why I said for some even a mystery might be a bit out of place or rare, because the moment something like that begins you kind of know you are in an adventure)

I am "underestimating" it because I don't believe it actually exists. I think that it's people trying to pretend that their process is somehow "different" from how everyone else does it.

 

[pemerton]

But, @robertsconley is very insistent that his decision making process is completely divorced from what he thinks would make an "interesting" event. That everything that happens is based on the logic of the setting.

In some more recent posts, he has talked about having regard to what would be interesting. And has endorsed some modes of "meta-agency":

Normally, the initial context for the characters would be worked out during pre-game, which is itself an example of meta-agency, handled by the players for their characters, not as their characters. What’s not shown in the video is the correspondence and messaging between me, Brendon, and later Elliot about character creation, which was also part of that pre-game.

<snip>

This is another example of meta-agency, used to flesh out the initial context so that Brendon has a clear understanding of his character’s situation before play begins. Without it, he would have little to go on when making decisions.

<snip>

I don’t care about what the personal goals or motivations are in particular. What I do care about is making sure they understand the facts of the setting necessary to realize those goals and motivation. Beyond that, as a friend, I’m interested in hearing what they’re thinking about their characters, but that isn’t relevant to my role as the referee. We’re all RPG nerds who enjoy talking about our characters and what we have planned for them, but that’s a separate from what’s required to run the game.

 

[Faolyn]

It's not against the spirit of the rules to carry a waterskin. But I was asked why the character didn't have one, and answered.

As for the other things, they are answered, And I've posted the answers in this thread, multiple times. Including most recently in post 7506.

In English, "agree to" and "agree with" are not synonyms. The latter means something like to share, or to come to share, the belief/opinion of another. The former means something like to undertake to perform a task at the behest of another. A Duel of Wits can generate the latter outcome. But does not generate the former - that's up to the participant controlling the character.

The bolded bit is still a violation of player agency. The PC can be forced to agree to something they--or the player--deeply disagree with, as per the scene re: the emperor's sister. And there's no way for the PC or player to back out because it all has to be "by the dice." I can only assume that you've never experienced "in character" sexual harassment, because if you had, you'd realize how ripe for abuse this whole thing is. All it takes if for the GM and abusive player to both be @$$holes.

Where are you positing that he says this?

You know, the whole bit where it says that it's designed to be two PCs or one PC and one NPC trying to convince a neutral third party.

If you are putting a lot of weight on "winner takes all" then there is a degree of truth to what you say, because of the compromise rules - although it is possible to lose a Duel of Wits without inflicting any loss on the opponent's body of argument (that has happened to me playing Thurgon), in which case the winner does take all.

No, I saw the bit about compromises. That doesn't really matter or make things better. The "compromise" of the emperor's sister being treated like property is that the PC would have to remain loyal to the emperor, not that the sister had a say in it.

But the rules absolutely are for arguments between PCs. That's obvious, and has been obvious to me since I first read them. Upthread I posted the text from The Codex where Luke Crane talks about the effect the rules have had on play at his table. And here is a bit form p 104 of Revised:

Two players are arguing because one player wants to have his character take some rash, adventure-ending action. The player arguing against taking the rash action loses the duel. However, he punched significant holes in his friend's argument. The rash-acting character still won the duel, so he can proceed as planned, but he must compromise a bit: He agrees to enact his plan later.​

If the game participant controlling the losing character (player vis-a-vis PC; GM vis-a-vis NPC) could just ignore the outcome, then there would be no point having the system and using it to generate an outcome!

One of most fun times I've had in a game is when a player (not me) decided to take a rash, adventure-ending action, with no warning. The party was split in two, having argued terribly about a major moral dilemma, both sides sure that the other had been deluded, and he acted. In character, it sucked, because the action was taken knowing it would bring about the apocalypse. Out of character, it was glorious. Seriously a badass action on that player's part.

If this had been in BW, the whole thing would have changed from gripping roleplay to boring roll-play.

But if a character is arguing in a Duel of Wits and decides to abandon their argument, then there is no conflict.

No, there's no dice rolling.

I keep bringing this up and you keep ignoring it. There's tons of conflict that occurs without the dice to guide it. It may be completely roleplayed out or it may be described rather than fully orated, but it occurs. People have in-character arguments and deeply meaningful and personal scenes without the dice.

This was my entire reason for starting arguing with you: you claimed BW was more intimate than D&D, and it turned out what you meant is that it involved more dice-rolling than D&D. While I was talking to you about that, I was so, so very frustrated you wouldn't actually show us that intimacy, until I learned that what it really was, was you rolled more successes than they did.

A general principle of interpretation, which works as well for rules as anything else, is that if one candidate interpretation makes the rule a nonsense and another doesn't, the other is to be preferred.

Nah. Just because one person thinks a rule isn't nonsense, it doesn't actually mean the rule isn't nonsense. It could just mean that the person has come up with their own interpretation of it that makes sense to them.

 

[Faolyn]

And yet it does!

​

And yet, on pp 124 of Revised:

Conditions for Steel Disadvantages​

​

Being shot at +1 Ob​

Being directly affected by magic +1 Ob​

Witnessing a person killed +1 Ob​

Small explosions +2 Ob​

Committing murder +2 Ob​

​

. . .​

​

The increased obstacle is essentially increasing the character's hesitation. The more scary and frightening, the longer a character is likely to hesitate.​

OK, you really need to read what I write before you respond because I brought that up in the same sentence.

 

[Bedrockgames]

....

So...when I ask for clarification, you again tell me you simply aren't going to.

I tried. I tried extremely hard here. I tried to keep it straightforward, not overly flowery, direct. I asked, I thought, politely.

Your answer is to immediately tell me "no", without any further explanation beyond "we already did that"...which I have repeatedly said no, I haven't had anything explained to me any further than just...repeating actually or functionally identical words in actually or functionally identical patterns with the expectation that saying the same thing twice will communicate something saying it once did not.

Which means it's really, really hard to buy things like...


...as actually being serious. This response does not even remotely come across as trying to understand my position, and it doesn't communicate even the slightest interest in understanding my impression of the conversation.

I'm genuinely sorry that this has led to people posting something rude or nasty on your blog, that's a crappy thing nobody should ever have done. But when I put a great deal of effort into asking clear, straightforward, (relatively) concise, specific questions to indicate where I don't (and do!) understand, the long and short of your answer is, "No, I'm not going to answer, because what you got is all you're getting."

How is this not exactly what I described above, where people on one side ask an endless litany of questions and then claim victory when the other side simply doesn't provide sufficiently deep, comprehensive, specific (but never ever any jargon!) answers, but when people on the other side ask any questions at all, they're met with, "You aren't getting any answers beyond what you've already gotten" with the expectation that that is perfectly acceptable?

I have to be honest I did not find your question to be very clear. I am not sure how I can answer it to your satisfaction. The only thing I can offer is you seem to be looking for us to list off processes or procedures. We are dealing primarily in principles in what you would probably call a trad play context. I am not interested in reducing that to a set of consistent procedures. My aim isn’t to make sure it is the same result at every table. Like I said many times the approach is an organic one. And we use many principles. If you want you can take a look at the appendix from my book I posted earlier and my blog posts on the Wuxia sandbox. But none of that gets into fundamental processes, it assumes a standard interaction between GM and players (However ones group does that).

 

[Bedrockgames]

L


I am "underestimating" it because I don't believe it actually exists. I think that it's people trying to pretend that their process is somehow "different" from how everyone else does it.

It does exist. I have seen it. I get you are super skeptical. Not sure what I can say. But it was pretty prevalent among sandbox groups back when I was formulating a lot of my own thoughts on it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You're right, this has nothing to do with the players.

This is about how the DM decides what is "plausible" and how the DM chooses. Like you say straight up, you will do your best to make those choices interesting and engaging. All good DM's will do that.

But, that's contrary to the idea that the world runs on its own logic and results from events should follow from what is most plausible. You are choosing results and events because they make a fun game. Fantastic. That's just being a good DM. But, @robertsconley is very insistent that his decision making process is completely divorced from what he thinks would make an "interesting" event. That everything that happens is based on the logic of the setting.

Which, to me, is just not accurately describing how a DM will make a decision.

Hussar why are you so hostile to this notion. Worst case scenario: Rob injects some fun along with plausibility. But it seems perfectly reasonable that some GMs might put aside what outcome will be most fun and go with what they think is most logical. I mean that isn’t impossible. If they can weigh it base on fun factor, why can’t they weigh it base on plausibility. Why would the former be possible but the latter impossible?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Hussar why are you so hostile to this notion. Worst case scenario: Rob injects some fun along with plausibility. But it seems perfectly reasonable that some GMs might put aside what outcome will be most fun and go with what they think is most logical. I mean that isn’t impossible. If they can weigh it base on fun factor, why can’t they weigh it base on plausibility. Why would the former be possible but the latter impossible?

It does seem odd to advocate against choosing fun when playing a game.

I know that’s not exactly what anyone has said, but there’s an element here of “why would you not choose the fun thing?”