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

[pemerton]

In real life, events happening in the UK are extremely unlikely to affect me in any way but out of interest I still read the BBC news page on a regular basis.

In the game setting, events are occurring elsewhere than where the PCs happen to be and even if those events don't have any effect on the PCs there might still be in-character interest in knowing about them.

At the table, this is about the GM telling the players some stuff that the GM made up.

 

[pemerton]

has modern games managed to evolve to the point where they have become so strong that in session GM meddling is more likely to reduce the quality of the experience than improve it? And is this even a worthy design goal, or is actually designs more actively leaning into the concept of a strongly empowered GM a path that is leading to a better experience? After all actively avoiding a tool that has shown strong value in the past might seem quite counter intuitive.

Strongly empowered to do what?

When I GM Burning Wheel, for instance, I feel "strongly empowered" to present my friend with scenes/situations that enliven and put pressure on the priorities that he has chosen for this PC (Beliefs, Instincts, etc).

Or consider the contrast that I drew, upthread, between @robertsconley's scenario involving ruffians and star-crossed lovers, and my similar session of Prince Valiant.

When @hawkeyefan asked robertsconley why/how he decided that the PCs would encounter the lovers as they did, robertsconley appeared to feel obliged to produce quite a complicated explanation in terms of GM tracking of backstory:

I established a timeline for the couple’s journey from Woodford. In a normal campaign, the encounter with the couple would only occur if the party happened to camp on the road that particular night.

If they force-marched to Woodford, they might have encountered the couple on the road. If they delayed their journey, they would have found the aftermath of the ruffian attack. I keep a chart of possible outcomes, roll one and roleplay accordingly. If the party approached from a different direction entirely, the couple’s situation wouldn’t come into play until they reached Woodford and heard about the two runaways.

It was a timeline encounter. The young couple were travelling south from Woodford. The party didn't delay their departure or get sidetracked along the way. So they met at the location marked Campsite on the night of Day 2. The couple left Woodford the afternoon of Day 2.

When I GMed Prince Valiant, I made decisions as a GM about who the PCs encounter, intended to frame them into interesting situations that would require the players to make choices about what how their knight errants respond.

Which of us is the more empowered GM?

I just read "constraints on GMs are essential" and similar as more than follow basic combat rules we've agreed upon because that level of rules adherence is just kind of given.

To me, this is an example of what @Campbell posted about upthread, of treating a certain sort of RPG - basically, conventional D&D - as normative.

In recent campaigns the characters have

• Bypassed encounters completely through clever decisions.

The concept of bypassing an encounter is an interesting one.

Where does the encounter "exist", such that the players are able to have their PCs "bypass" it?

In most of the RPGing that I do, there are just events that occur in play. So we at the table experience those events, and in the fiction the PCs do whatever it is that they do. But there are no "proto-events" to be bypassed.[/indent]

 

[Pedantic]

Yes, this is the common response. If the system produces situations that are so flawed two completely different groups look at the situation and everyone (including me) agrees this is just plain uncool, then the problem is the system, and you are better off playing something different.

There are merit to this argument, but I think it is too simple. To take another example of the extreme: If you have a system that is great 99% of the time, but produces an incident once every 50 sessions that is completely beyond reason. Are the group better off transition to a game that is good (but not great) 100% of the time, or introduce a system allowing for in play identification and elimination of the problem incidents?

It would be no surprise if the first roleplaying games ever produced contains severe issues if played completely orthodoxily. However the "error correcting" mechanism of the GM role as game designer is so strong that even in the face of games designed based on decades of learnings regarding what works and not - those old games with an actively meddling unorthodox GM provides an experience quite a few prefer over following a well designed modern game by the books.

Indeed this is a lot of the big controversy this conversation revolves around - has modern games managed to evolve to the point where they have become so strong that in session GM meddling is more likely to reduce the quality of the experience than improve it? And is this even a worthy design goal, or is actually designs more actively leaning into the concept of a strongly empowered GM a path that is leading to a better experience? After all actively avoiding a tool that has shown strong value in the past might seem quite counter intuitive.

There's an implicit assumption in here that I spend most of my time with RPGs (especially "modern" ones) beating my head against. There's nothing inevitable about the current set of design norms, on either "side" of this whole discussion. I don't need to submit that players should ever have authorial powers, nor that GMs should have resolution design responsibilities. That was the whole point of my criticism of critical hits; this isn't an answered question, and there's design paths we could still be considering. Frankly, both sides feel like an abdication of design responsibility to me. Either you're simply not doing the design work you don't feel like doing, which is where you get the "rule zero, DM empowerment" angle from, or you're reframing the basic structure of play altogether.

Design trends in RPGs have been significantly less focused on development, and significantly more focused on shifting the design goals of the overall RPG environment. We don't really have a steady march of progress towards some cleaner, better modern model, because the core experience offered by different rules is fundamentally not the same, system to system. It's not that we're doing the thing we used to do better, it's that we're doing more, and more different things.

 

[AlViking]

...

The concept of bypassing an encounter is an interesting one.

Where does the encounter "exist", such that the players are able to have their PCs "bypass" it?

In most of the RPGing that I do, there are just events that occur in play. So we at the table experience those events, and in the fiction the PCs do whatever it is that they do. But there are no "proto-events" to be bypassed.[/indent]

There was an obstacle and I had figured out a potential combat encounter. That combat encounter didn't happen because they figured out a way to bypass the guards. If I ran a railroad like some people insist, that combat encounter would have happened anyway because I would have just used quantum guards that appeared for some other reason.

On a side note, one of the reasons I gave up on XP was because it incentivized combat encounters over smart play (and generally speaking avoiding a fight is a good idea).

 

[thefutilist]

There's an implicit assumption in here that I spend most of my time with RPGs (especially "modern" ones) beating my head against. There's nothing inevitable about the current set of design norms, on either "side" of this whole discussion. I don't need to submit that players should ever have authorial powers, nor that GMs should have resolution design responsibilities. That was the whole point of my criticism of critical hits; this isn't an answered question, and there's design paths we could still be considering. Frankly, both sides feel like an abdication of design responsibility to me. Either you're simply not doing the design work you don't feel like doing, which is where you get the "rule zero, DM empowerment" angle from, or you're reframing the basic structure of play altogether.

Design trends in RPGs have been significantly less focused on development, and significantly more focused on shifting the design goals of the overall RPG environment. We don't really have a steady march of progress towards some cleaner, better modern model, because the core experience offered by different rules is fundamentally not the same, system to system. It's not that we're doing the thing we used to do better, it's that we're doing more, and more different things.

I would push back on the idea that there was a single thing. Due to the whole, what's the reward for play and what techniques are emphasised. I mean what games would you consider representative of the standard model?

 

[Gimby]

Yes, this is the common response. If the system produces situations that are so flawed two completely different groups look at the situation and everyone (including me) agrees this is just plain uncool, then the problem is the system, and you are better off playing something different.

There are merit to this argument, but I think it is too simple. To take another example of the extreme: If you have a system that is great 99% of the time, but produces an incident once every 50 sessions that is completely beyond reason. Are the group better off transition to a game that is good (but not great) 100% of the time, or introduce a system allowing for in play identification and elimination of the problem incidents?

It would be no surprise if the first roleplaying games ever produced contains severe issues if played completely orthodoxily. However the "error correcting" mechanism of the GM role as game designer is so strong that even in the face of games designed based on decades of learnings regarding what works and not - those old games with an actively meddling unorthodox GM provides an experience quite a few prefer over following a well designed modern game by the books.

Indeed this is a lot of the big controversy this conversation revolves around - has modern games managed to evolve to the point where they have become so strong that in session GM meddling is more likely to reduce the quality of the experience than improve it? And is this even a worthy design goal, or is actually designs more actively leaning into the concept of a strongly empowered GM a path that is leading to a better experience? After all actively avoiding a tool that has shown strong value in the past might seem quite counter intuitive.

I mean, the example I gave here (WHFRP) is one of the first roleplaying games ever produced - it'll be 40 years old next year and the mechanic here (fate points) is from it's first edition. It's got it's own share of issues, but the specific one mentioned isn't one of them. And given how modular this specific system is, it's very easily bolted on to almost any "trad" system you care to name. The net effect of it here is really just formalising the resolution of the disagreement you seemed to be describing by setting out a clear guideline for how much this sort of thing can be expected to happen.

Ultimately, there's going to be a matter of taste in how much you like wearing the designers hat (and some measure of skill in determining how good you are at it - I'm sure we've all experienced games with actively harmful houserules in them from time to time). The rule-overriding GM is certainly a tool that has value, but given the general shortage of GMs it does feel sensible to explore ways to make their lives easier - better advice, clearer procedures (and this isn't new either - B/X had this in spades), rules that just need less tinkering in general.

 

[Faolyn]

Strongly empowered to do what?

When I GM Burning Wheel, for instance, I feel "strongly empowered" to present my friend with scenes/situations that enliven and put pressure on the priorities that he has chosen for this PC (Beliefs, Instincts, etc).

Or consider the contrast that I drew, upthread, between @robertsconley's scenario involving ruffians and star-crossed lovers, and my similar session of Prince Valiant.

When @hawkeyefan asked robertsconley why/how he decided that the PCs would encounter the lovers as they did, robertsconley appeared to feel obliged to produce quite a complicated explanation in terms of GM tracking of backstory:

​

​

When I GMed Prince Valiant, I made decisions as a GM about who the PCs encounter, intended to frame them into interesting situations that would require the players to make choices about what how their knight errants respond.

Which of us is the more empowered GM?

Well, he gets to create more of the world than you do, or did in your Prince Valiant example, so it really depends on whether or not you find that empowering. Robertconley clearly does.

To me, this is an example of what @Campbell posted about upthread, of treating a certain sort of RPG - basically, conventional D&D - as normative.

The concept of bypassing an encounter is an interesting one.

Really? I had already explained it to you at length when you “couldn’t understand” it when I described a player choosing to bypass a plot hook I offered. Since I went into great length to answer your multiple questions about it, the fact that you’re asking someone else suggests that you either completely forgot what I said or are coming into these discussions with a deliberate and rather rude belief that people who GM trad games invariably railroad players or otherwise force them into specific actions.

Perhaps that’s a belief you want to drop.

 

[SableWyvern]

- I'm sure we've all experienced games with actively harmful houserules in them from time to time).

Not really, no. I've played some games with houserules that aren't rules I would choose to employ if I was making those decisions. I've implemented rules that haven't worked out as intended (and thus I changed or dropped them) but I don't recall ever being in any kind game with "actively harmful houserules". I have a hard time visualising what that would even be like.

I don't say this because it's necessarily a point worth arguing over, and I'm aware this isn't particularly pertinent to the overall point being made. However it does highlight to me, yet again, the diversity of experiences held by the various posters in this thread, and that assuming everyone else has had the same experiences as (generic) you is only going to result in confusion and disagreement.

 

[Lanefan]

I think you may have misread his post. He changed his decision so that the PC was not killed by the critical hit.

Really? It reads to me as if he followed through on it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Pretty much all of them.

I don’t think I count as fully trad. I do prefer narrative games and use narrative elements even in trad games. I just see no reason to limit how I run a game based on what category other people think the game belongs to. If the rules in a game I want to play are dumb, obnoxious, or outright bad, I ignore or change them or I toss the game entirely, but I haven’t found any GM- restraining rules to be bad like that so far, at least not in games I own (as you probably remember from earlier in the thread, I found plenty of bad ones in a game I don’t own).

To me, yes, there’s a bigger world out there, there’s all sorts of things out there that don’t care about the players’ actions, but this is the story about the PCs. I have no problems with the players influencing the world because I, like everyone else, have preferences about the way the setting works, but I also would end up finding it very boring if that was all that there is. I like having other people’s input. It makes the world feel more real to me.

And since this is the PCs’ story, they get a say in it. Their beliefs, goals, and fears are what drive them to act, and thus are important, even if the character sheet doesn’t have a section in which to write them down.

The issue isn't entirely that I don't want to do these things (although I mostly don't), it's that I don't want to play a game where the GM or whatever is required to do these things or they aren't following the rules.