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

[zakael19]

My list is true for me, where I am now, but I've had exposure to a load of different techniques. I don't buy the whole 'Apocalypse World teaches people to play because of the GM rules' very convincing at all but that's maybe tangential to my previous points.

Over in the Daggerheart thread there's some folks talking about how awesome the GM Guidance in there is about how to run the game from that perspective, tools and techniques for success, etc. At least one other poster went and looked at it and said "this is good stuff, but is basically just what's been in PBTA books for over a decade now."

I think that the sort of "talking about what it means to play a/this TTRPG" from an around-the-table perspective that pretty much all narrativist games do is very helpful in thinking about the craft of playing a game for all participants. And again, we see that the OSR scene which had been working out how they were going to formalize and promulgate their form of idealized B/X etc play looked at the guidance in AW and built something analogous in the Principia. Many new OSR games have specific "DM Agenda/Best Practices/whatever" and the same for players as well - "here's how to get the most out of this game and the style of play."

 

[hawkeyefan]

So is it that you can't or simply won't give me a simple example of a specific rule for a specific game that a new GM could learn from and then apply to D&D? If you're talking about traditional games then it should be fairly easy "This is what would happen in D&D, this is what happens in game X and why I think it's better for new GMs."

It's not a big deal, I was just trying to understand your statement that you think most GMs would benefit from playing other games. It's been a while since I spent much effort playing other games but when I did I didn't really learn much I thought applied to D&D or would have made me a better DM. But you've been pretty adamant about it so I was curious. I didn't say you were talking about games with completely different approach, I just acknowledge that there are games that take approaches that don't really apply to a traditional games.

I would expect that, given how different rules can be from one game to the next, it's more about the way to handle rules than specific rules that would be the major factor. The advice that is offered by the rules text or the principles offered on how to GM and/or play well. It may not make sense to site a rule from, say, Apocalypse World and then port it to D&D.

I wish that some of the game books I've read in the last few years had existed when I was a kid and was trying to learn all this kind of stuff in isolation, with only the products themselves as guidance.

 

[Lanefan]

You're objectively correct with this statement....and I never said anything contradictory to it. Far from it. I pretty much explicitly said otherwise. However, I find that the costs of saying "no" too often are much, much, much worse than the costs of saying "yes" too often; I find that DMs are much, much, much more prone to saying a flat unequivocal "no" when they should have said some variation of "yes" (or at least "no, but...") than they are to saying some variation of "yes" when they should have said a flat unequivocal "no"; and that players in general respond very negatively to even a very slight excess of flat unequivocal "no" answers, while even an egregious excess of some variation of "yes" is far from guaranteed to cause a problem.

Point being: "Yes" is something DMs need to learn to use, whereas "no" seems to be the default for situations the DM wasn't already well-prepped to respond to, and that both the benefits of saying "yes" in the cases where you definitely shouldn't say "no" far outweigh the costs of saying "yes" when you shouldn't, and the costs of saying "yes" when you definitely should have said "no" far outweigh the costs of saying "no" when you shouldn't.

In general, some variation of "yes"--usually "yes, and" or "yes, but", or occasionally "no, but", which is functionally a "yes" answer along a new/different/alternate path--is simply better. There absolutely will be times when you should just say a flat "no." But those times should be exceedingly rare. Like "a couple times in a year of weekly games" rare. If you're needing to say a flat "no" more often than that, something is seriously wrong and you need to have a heart-to-heart with your players to figure out where and what the disconnect is.

A lot of this depends on what the players are trying to have their characters do.

Thinking about it, my by-far most common answer is neither yes nor no, but "maybe". If they try something off the books that seems to make in-fiction sense, I'll quickly dream up some odds of it succeeding and then the dice get rolled.

A very recent example from my game: party of 7 spent several days in two large-ish canoes making their way up a slow-flowing river through a swamp. No solid ground to camp on, and not enough room in the canoes for people to sleep. So, in a nice bit of pre-planning they had brought a number of large planks and some extra rope so as to raft the two canoes together into a platform for when they wanted to camp.

Knowing boats as I do, I-as-DM could see all kinds of ways this idea could go all kinds of wrong...and also see that it might work quite well as intended. And so, "maybe": I got them to roll on a the-higher-the-better sliding scale for the first few nights to see how well this worked out; they did OK and so after that I ruled they had it figured thus no more rolling needed.

Had they tried to bring enough wood to make a cottage, however, that would have been a flat "no" if only because there wouldn't be enough room in the canoes for both the wood and the people.

I've had a similar situation to your previous example. I had prepared this (I presume!) awesome encounter where several blood-obsidian spirits (long story--TL;DR: they're not-technically-undead wraiths made by evil druids binding the still-technically-living spirits of sapient beings to a sufficient quantity of ground-up blood obsidian) had been accidentally melted by soul-animated mechanical spiders (whose bodies were designed to be destroyed by their own flames); in the conflagration, because of the similar magics involved, the two opposing forces had fused into a towering molten-obsidian golem with mythril mechano-spider-leg claws coming out of its "hands".

And then they just...retreated and taunted it into walking into a pit trap full of water, which solidified it and they shattered it with a single weapon strike. I simply hadn't considered that possibility, they had, and although I felt a bit embarassed at having failed to foresee such a thing, my players loved that they'd figured out something clever. Talked about it for months after (not in a "haha see how we pulled one over on you" way, but rather a "that was AWESOME" kind of way).

I love this kind of stuff!

So I very much understand where you're coming from on this. My problem mostly arises with...well. Taking the thing too far; shutting down too many plans because of an excessive commitment to realism over fun, treating the rule of cool as something absolutely verboten rather than a useful tool to be applied when appropriate and to be left aside when inappropriate. I've had both bad DMs I've personally dealt with and DMs I've heard horror stories about from my personal friends (not just randos online, who can say whatever they like even if it's pure fiction) who have taken "realism before fun" WAY too far. From that, it is my considered belief that taking this too far is both extremely easy to do--as in, it's one of the hardest-to-resist DM temptations out there, second only to the temptation to force outcomes to go the way you designed them to--and extremely easy to ad hoc justify when one should not have done so.

Thing is, your example with the blood spirits was both realistic and cool: the players found a way to turn the in-game reality to their favour, resulting in a cool and memorable moment.

 

[JConstantine]

I stand by my assessment. Based only on what @Bedrockgames has shared here and in some past conversations, and also based on his advocacy of @robertsconley 's approach.

Given your complaint about people pigeon-holing your approach, I think it would be wise to not lump Bedrock based on his advocacy of Robert's approach, especially since he's clearly stated that they diverge.

But aside from that, the game they're describing very much sounds like a vehicle for the GM's content. I did use the phrase GM-driven, and I think that perhaps was a bit misleading, so I've clarified that as "GM -focused" or "vehicle for the GM's content".

So, I picked up @Bedrockgames ' Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades a few years ago, which led me to his blog, and the podcast he did with his co-author, so I have a greater familiarity with his approach than I do @robertsconley 's (though I recall reading a few articles on Robert's blog when I first started GMing 10 or so years ago), and here's the thing, it's no more a "vehicle for the GM's content" than BitD is. If you consider BitD to be player-driven, then so is Bedrock's sandbox, otherwise Blades isn't player-driven either.

And to be clear again, "GM's content" is not a bad thing. I'm not saying it's a railroad or anything like that. It's just the GM has put all this prep into the setting and its NPCs and factions and events... those are going to be the major focus of play. The player characters are meant and expected to interact with the setting. Look at the "star crossed lovers" example. This is a pair of GM NPCs to be interacted with... and the resultant action drives play.

You've just described BitD.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The flaw in your argument is that it incorrectly attributes the issue to the “loose hand” itself, when the real problem is a breakdown in communication.

Yes, mechanics can be an effective and terse way to convey how things work, whether it's what a character can do, the abilities of a monster, or how a campaign is expected to function. But that's just one way to communicate, and it’s not always the best one. People vary in how they process and understand information. What works well for one player may be opaque to another.

Moreover, using game mechanics to communicate how a campaign works carries an implicit assumption: that the rules are not just descriptive but prescriptive. Many people grow up believing that the fair way to play any game is to follow its written rules. If something isn’t in the rules, they may assume it’s off-limits or unfair to invoke.

This can lead to problems when designers rely too heavily on mechanics to convey expectations. Overly rigid application of those mechanics, especially by players or referees who interpret the rules as a complete representation of the world, can actually obscure the intended flexibility or tone. If that’s intentional, fine. But too often, I don’t see designers consider this consequence.

As for me, this concern is why much of my Living World sandbox framework is presented as advice, not as a rigid system of rules. I want to give referees tools, not prescriptions, because communication, not mechanical enforcement, is the key to clarity and trust at the table.

I think basically this view is, in part, outdated. Techniques and approaches to running RPGs, and thus the associated game designs, have evolved a huge amount in the last 20 years. In 1995, maybe even in 2005, I'd have agreed with you on a lot of this.

But the reality is a game like Dungeon World is simply not described by your view at all. The actual approach is super general and rarely gets in the way. It's not a set of rigid rules in the sense you all seem to mean. It's more of a supporting framework for how the participants interact and the game flows.

The actual mechanics are also extraordinarily general, and yet always applicable, unlike systems that try to handle endless specific situations, which I agree with you don't really work well.

 

[Lanefan]

The desire of people to draw lines in the sand and firmly put people on one or the other side is tiresome.

But, if we're playing in a sandbox anyway.....

 

[SableWyvern]

I don't believe you actually get more 'power'. It's a game anyway, seems weird to me to even talk in those terms. DW more clearly defines the process of making the game work, for everyone.

If you are going to quibble and say the restrictions aren't reducing power, I'm not going to bother arguing. Choose another word that works for you.

And who decided that your judgement is better than anyone else's?

This is yet another complete straw man. The literal answer here is that no one in this thread is claiming their judgement is better than anyone else in this context.

The whole way questioning any of this orthodoxy is resisted is strange to me.

The way it's questioned frequently seems to not be in good faith. No one is resisting your right to play any way you want.

 

[AlViking]

I would expect that, given how different rules can be from one game to the next, it's more about the way to handle rules than specific rules that would be the major factor. The advice that is offered by the rules text or the principles offered on how to GM and/or play well. It may not make sense to site a rule from, say, Apocalypse World and then port it to D&D.

I wish that some of the game books I've read in the last few years had existed when I was a kid and was trying to learn all this kind of stuff in isolation, with only the products themselves as guidance.

But if you can take rules from one game and apply to another (which makes sense) then why say that GMs should start with other games? Because that's what I was asking about. I mean, there's a ton of advice out there. The advice in the 2024 DMG is pretty good, there are a ton of videos and blogs which is great. I don't see a reason I need to pay for, learn and play a game. At the same time I think every GM needs to learn what works for them and you only learn that from doing.

 

[Lanefan]

I genuinely don't see why I should.

I am not trying to be a crap-stirrer here. I genuinely don't see why I should agree to disagree, when I've seen cited page/post after cited page/post indicating this. Whole reams of threads about "Free Kriegsspiel" and how games would be better if players never actually saw any rules at all, and always just directly spoke to the DM and said what they're attempting. Page after page after page on "invisible rulebooks" and how super-amazing-wonderful they are because they let us get rid of rules entirely.

I know no other interpretation of this than seeing rules as nasty bad things to be destroyed. If the OSR overall is such a proponent of rules being good and useful things, where were such folks in those FKR threads? In the many conversations where people talked about how rules minimalism is always better no matter what?

While I haven't been following the FKR threads you speak of, IME the old-schoolers are very much about rules, and rulings that become rules.

A very quick glance at the forums at dragonsfoot.org (a site dedicated to TSR-era D&D) will back this up in spades.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Just something I want to comment on trying to catchup on this thread...

We have posters discussing how they do not like the restrictions placed on the GM particularly those found in Narrative games.
In the same vein they argue that restrictions on players choices are important/necessary to highlight key peculiarities of the setting.

I find that amusing.