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

[dave2008]

Certainly. A persistent world in a video game context is one that continues to operate, in various senses (e.g. monsters might wander around, plants might grow, day/night cycles continue, etc.), regardless of whether any players are actually engaged with it.

OK, thank you for the definition. Ideally that is how I like to DM, but I do realize the limited capabilities of one person in the endeavor to simulate a whole setting!

 

[dave2008]

Okay. This does circle back to one of the other things ("plausible"), so it's a bit difficult to work with, but it's something, so I won't complain too much.

Plausibility is deeply subjective, as I understand the term. Things I might consider implausible, you might consider plausible and vice-versa. This is especially true if we refer to it as "broadly plausible", meaning we aren't requiring a narrow lens here. E.g., Dictionary.com gives "plausible" the primary definition of "having an appearance of truth or reason; seemingly worthy of approval or acceptance; credible; believable"--tying it to entirely subjective things like appearances, worthiness, approval, believable, etc. The second definition definitely isn't something you want to bring in so I won't touch that.

But there's a second component here, which is...more or less what I've referenced several times now as "DM effort required", namely, "the fantasy physics and assumptions of the campaign world (setting)", as you put it. What things are part of the fantasy physics? Well...whatever you're told are part of it, which means...anything the DM decides to include. So the plausible cannot really limit anything, unless the DM is just bad at getting you to think they know what they're doing or talking about. Almost anything can become plausible with the right preamble. That's why the second definition I alluded to above isn't something you want to invoke, as it notes that a "plausible" argument, for example, is implicitly an argument with only the superficial appearance of truth and nothing underneath, sort of a damning with faint praise situation (as in, if it were more than merely plausible, one would expect to use the stronger word instead.)

"Realism", if it does in fact find its root in plausibility, establishment of patterns of inputs and outputs ("fantasy physics"), and "assumptions of the...setting", is...thus not really that much of a limiter. Yes, it will limit some things, some of the time; I'm not trying to say it's literally 100% pure anything goes. But it's also a pretty weak limit. That's why I bring up DM effort here. Almost anything can be massaged into plausibility with enough DM effort. This becomes exponentially easier when you have grandfathered exceptions like "magic", where literally some players will get all up in arms about something until the DM says "it's magic" and then suddenly every complaint (IMO pretty inexplicably!) just evaporates. If magic is a part of the world's physics, it has to have rules too, just declaring something "magic" isn't enough--but D&D fans seem to accept the loosest, most ridiculously unbound, most uncodified systems of magic without a peep of criticism (one, of several, reasons why magic in D&D remains overpowered.)


It's fine. Your replies have been courteous and you have endeavored to explain, and you have recognized useful contributions I have made. I'm probably not going to read the rest of the thread, but I am happy to respond to this. There's a reply I owe Lanefan for a similar response, but that might have to wait until after I get some sleep.

I will respond to this at a later date/time - I need to get to a meeting. Just didn't want to leave you hanging since I responded to your other posts.

 

[AnotherGuy]

What I do instead of what clocks do for the players is provide summaries, or if I am lucky, a player does the summaries. I generally like it better when a player keeps track because it is more immersive.

Summaries would be good, but I do not do them.
I used to provide details on pertinent information religiously on our Obsidian Portal page, but it soon became work for little to no benefit, I felt. And the need for perfection crept in and I found myself always adjusting and fixing.
Also, not enough of the players are invested on that level to take time to read. I tried to incentivize the reading of those pages in earlier years on the site but that's was the wrong approach. I've made plenty mistakes, but with those mistakes we learn, right? Hopefully.

What I think Obsidian Portal is better for is the odd character prose and stories between sessions. Perhaps documenting a change in the rules, but mostly I have found it to be useful as a creative outlet rather than as something that must be done after every session.
I found my short story behind-the-scene encounters were more appreciated by the players than my obsessiveness to record everything or anything pertinent session by session.

We play in person, usually twice a month, nothing is recorded as one can do via discord, skype, teams etc. I extended my lounge table, and I use my television monitor which is converted into a PCs for notes, music, pics, maps and looking up stuff. At some point we have a meal, either I've cooked or someone cooks. It is a lot more casual with person-2-person than the demands of online play (at least that is my perspective of it).

Your summaries provide a lot of detail, probably more so that I feel may be necessary IMO. This is not a critique but rather I am sympathetic because you do seem to go to much effort and trouble for your campaigns and your players and I'm not sure all that energy you give is being rewarded back to you (this is an assumption on my part). That is my concern. I hope you take that in the spirit that it is meant.

What I found interesting/entertaining was the commentary by the player in their session summary.

I'll get to some of your other posts I'd like to reply on as and when I can.

 

[Maxperson]

But, again, it's the DM who determines what is or is not plausible. My DM example way, way back thought it was entirely plausible that the merchant left town without notice just before our heist. If asked, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she thought that was perfectly plausible. And, really, she's not wrong. It is entirely plausible for the merchant to leave town without notice. It can happen. Now, I also know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it happened because the DM was railroading us. But, from the perspective of plausibility, it passes the sniff test.

Basically, "plausible" is such an incredibly low bar. I mean, good grief, virtually no dungeon is ever "plausible" without the DM doing a ton of back filling. The entire Caves of Chaos is completely implausible. But, we accept it.

It's a meaningless metric.

The DM does not at all determine what is or is not plausible. What is or is not plausible exists outside of the DM. The DM determines which of the plausible(or very rarely implausible) outcomes happen from those possibilities.

I disagree with both you and your DM. It's POSSIBLE for the merchant to just up and leave like that, but possible does not equal plausible. Plausible is what is reasonable or probable, and what she did doesn't pass either of those tests.

Plausible is only that low of a low bar if you include everything that is even remotely possible, in which case you guys are doing plausibility wrong.

 

[Maxperson]

And yet that's exactly the response we've seen in this very thread.

No it's not. "Magic can do it" is not the same as bringing up magic to explain the absurd in order to try to get away with something.

A Warlord creature being able to just make someone afraid? Utterly ridiculous.

A PC? Yes. The pre-establishd fear spell? No. Shouting "magic" to allow the warlord to do a clearly non-magical thing in order to get away with using the ability on a PC? What I was just talking about. The last one is implausible.

 

[Maxperson]

I agree with you, but that wasn't what I was trying to talk about.

My stance is that claiming your setting has some "internal logic" outside of what you (the DM and the group) determine is false, IMO.

So if the DM had a detailed write up on the setting, all of his rulings, and the results of the adventures, an outside individual couldn't easily figure out how to use that information to use that information to run his own adventure that was logically consistent with the setting?

If he could, there is internal setting logic that exists outside the DM and the group, because a complete stranger can easily figure it out. If he can't, well let's just say that I don't think that someone wouldn't be able to do it.

I've seen it done for decades with the Forgotten Realms and other pre-written settings that they see for the first time and then run successful adventures that meet the internal logic of those settings. They've built off of what is written, logically extending those pre-written things for their games.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You may well have seen such things; I'm just leery of people who then apply those experiences to specific individuals they don't know in a general conversation or treat their experience as universally applicable.

I don't apply it to specific individuals. I just don't not apply it to specific individuals if you understand the difference. And I don't universalized, but I've got enough data as far as I'm concerned to generalize.

Any given individual is an individual, and can be an exception to a general case. All I'm saying is the fact someone says "Its not a problem at my table" is telling me what one person at the table says in the end. And I've seen enough cases where that occurred and didn't actually reflect the other people at the table to take it with a grain of salt.

Edit to add: Perhaps one big factor that distinguishes groups where the players are secretly unhappy and ones where they are not is the willingness of players to speak up in the first place. If my players aren't happy with something, they will actually tell me and then we can work towards a mutually satisfactory solution. In other words, the fact I can successfully run games where the GM has a lot of power to make judgements isn't the result of being some prodigy capable of doing things most GMs can't, it's simply that I have players who feel comfortable voicing their opinions and we, as a group, are capable of working towards solutions to problems.

That certainly helps considerably.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't apply it to specific individuals. I just don't not apply it to specific individuals if you understand the difference. And I don't universalized, but I've got enough data as far as I'm concerned to generalize.

Any given individual is an individual, and can be an exception to a general case. All I'm saying is the fact someone says "Its not a problem at my table" is telling me what one person at the table says in the end. And I've seen enough cases where that occurred and didn't actually reflect the other people at the table to take it with a grain of salt.

But the problem with this is it also goes the other way. I've seen plenty of people say something was a problem at the table, only to find out it wasn't: they were the one with the problem. I think the issue is there are both problem players and problem GMs, and you can genuinely encounter both. If one person is making a group miserable that is a problem. But I think there is an assumption operating in this thread that it is mostly only the GM, and I think that isn't the case. A player who is overly insistent that the table bend to their tastes, is just as bad as a railroady GM or a GM who abuses their power, in terms of how functional the table is. For me, what I look for is a functional table. If you avoid both of these types of people, you gaming is so much easier. I treat it no different than I would other relationships. I am not going to be friends with someone who is bringing me down all the time, or constantly causing drama and problems. And I am not going to game with anyone who makes our time at the table unpleasant

 

[Thomas Shey]

But the problem with this is it also goes the other way.

Oh, absolutely. Someone can come to a different conclusion in good faith. At this point that's just not likely to change my mind, because they're just one more data point out of hundreds.

Edit: that said, I don't think I buy your claim that a single demanding player is as big a problem as a domineering GM. I think in most cases the one is far easier to address than the other.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Edit: that said, I don't think I buy your claim that a single demanding player is as big a problem as a domineering GM. I think in most cases the one is far easier to address than the other.

I don't know. I've seen social groups break down from both. Admittedly the GM has more authority within the game, but that is contingent on the group buying in. The real problem I think is having a domineering personality who sets the agenda for everyone and doesn't consider the impact their words and actions have on people (or just doesn't care). A bad GM, can be confrontational when they are called out, but a bad player can be equally confrontational with other players or the GM (I've seen for example people ruin a person's experience because they didn't have the right build or made a questionable choice). For me, if someone is causing drama, berating people, essentially throwing tantrums, I have no interest in gaming with that person