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

[Micah Sweet]

I should think it obvious that the answer is "no", but this thread has made clear that unless I spill a thousand words on every single thing that ought to be easily understood, I'll be ignored. (Of course, most will still ignore it because then I've said too much, but better that than getting skewered for things I never even actually said.)

So: Okay. We agree that some constraints are good. Do you agree, then, that that means you cannot reject a rule solely because it involves GM constraints? Because that would seem to be a logical necessity if one grants that some constraints are good.

At which point, the thrust of my argument remains: If you're going to declare that a particular GM restriction is bad, you have to actually show WHY it's bad, not just reject it on the basis of being a GM constraint.


Pardon me for expecting an actual discussion, and not people shouting "I'm right because I say so!"


Yes--and you'll note that that's because those things are, in fact, genuinely forced by something beyond your actual control.

That's the key difference there. Barring those who believe in a particularly interventionist divine figure--which I would assume doesn't include you--you actually ARE forced into various decisions by the physical limitations of the world around you.

I have yet to be given a single limitation on GM power in this context that doesn't quickly (often almost immediately) loop back to being fully defined and controlled by the GM. Context? Defined by the GM--both what gets to go into the context in the first place, and what qualifies as relevant forever after. Player actions? Players cannot act until they're given information by the GM, so their actions are always conditional on what the GM actually lets them know, and as I've said a few times now, the GM has 100% total control over what consequences result from those actions. Plausibility? Anything can be made plausible with a bit of effort, especially in a universe with magic, as I've argued several times now and haven't gotten a meaningful response beyond "nuh-uh! Magic has rules!" (Rules invented as part of the setting......which means invented by the GM, and trivially easily broken by the GM if they just do a little prep work first.)

Give me a limitation that doesn't loop back to being under the GM's control, and I can take seriously the idea that the GM isn't the one responsible.


But who, then, is the Shakespeare to the players? Because the natural extension of this analogy--which I assume you really did not intend--is that Shakespeare is the GM. Y'know, the one who defines all of the locations...who writes and portrays every incidental character...who completely controls all opposition forces...who has absolute power over both what information the players are allowed to know and what consequences arise from anything and everything the players elect to do...


I mean, if one is saying that player agency matters a great deal and is the core centerpiece of the approach, then yes, I would say that it is bad to have one person with that particular kind of power involved in the process.

I'm not saying the players actions definitely don't matter. I'm saying that the players' actions aren't, and cannot be, any kind of limitation on the GM--because the GM controls all possible inputs into the decision-making the players can do, and controls all possible outputs from those decisions. The former, because the players literally cannot know anything about the world unless the GM tells them. That's literally the explicit thing happening here, as has been repeatedly described by many different people. Players can and will presume a lot, but presumptions are not actually capable of supporting action--they fade at the slightest encounter with contradiction, which is the moment when the GM actually informs them. And then the latter because, again as I have understood it from nearly every poster "on your side" here, the GM is the sole decider of results--all rules can and will be broken if the GM feels it appropriate, and guess what, the GM is the sole decider of whether it's appropriate or not. Hell, even the need to respect the player's die rolls was not unequivocally supported!

If the GM controls 100% of the inputs and outputs related to player decision-making as you claim, then you are saying that in that situation player decision-making is meaningless. That's pretty straightforward logic. Since that's your position on how trad play works, your claim is that players cannot make meaningful decisions in trad play.

Any wonder why you're getting pushback on this claim?

 

[Maxperson]

And if the DM tells you, "What barmaid?", what would you say?

I would say, "Then why did you describe a barmaid to us when we walked in?" I wouldn't have made that declaration if one wasn't there already.

You've been one of the folks quite ready to trash anything that you think looks like players "inventing" things in the world.

I mean, I've said many times in many threads that I have several times tried incorporating various narrative mechanics for the players to do just that. It has been a disappointment to me that they have soundly rejected such things and at this point I've given up. They have made their desires known, and it doesn't include narrative creation.

I have also said that they can make stuff up for their backgrounds, and my players often do. Entire towns that didn't exist before that PC.

They don't detail out those towns, but can and do include details like people they know, rivalries, the name of the mayor, etc.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Okay, here is what I will say then. In that example there was no invisible railroad. The was one and the players got off it by eating the crew of the ship. Provided the GM is letting players truly make those kinds of choices, then you don't have to worry about an invisible railroad

Isn't that circular?

"Provided the GM never does anything wrong, the GM never does anything wrong."

 

[Bedrockgames]

Which is patently ridiculous when GMs, literally for decades, have practiced invisible railroading, where the players THINK they're making decisions and driving the plot etc. etc., and the actual result was already perfectly determined in advance by the GM....the GM is just very good at twisting, folding, and rearranging the things players "chose" so that the consequences just so happen to be what the GM planned all along.

What power does player choice have in the face of an invisible railroad?

It doesn't if the GM is running an invisible railroad. But that GM wasn't. He was railroading but when the players decided to bust the railroad, he let them. I wouldn't say this means players can always get off an invisible railroad. I do think it demonstrates that even in a railroad, player choice can still be powerful

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If the GM controls 100% of the inputs and outputs related to player decision-making as you claim, then you are saying that in that situation player decision-making is meaningless. That's pretty straightforward logic. Since that's your position on how trad play works, your claim is that players cannot make meaningful decisions in trad play.

Any wonder why you're getting pushback on this claim?

And yet nobody has actually given me one thing to indicate that the GM doesn't control those inputs and outputs. At this point, I have now had people tell me that in fact yes, the GM DOES control those things, and they're just agreeing not to control it in the wrong ways.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It doesn't if the GM is running an invisible railroad. But that GM wasn't. He was railroading but when the players decided to bust the railroad, he let them. I wouldn't say this means players can always get off an invisible railroad. I do think it demonstrates that even in a railroad, player choice can still be powerful

I didn't say THAT GM was.

I asked what power the player has WHEN ON an invisible railroad.

The power that was described has already presumed there is no railroad, regardless of its visibility.

 

[Maxperson]

Would it, really? Like seriously, would it? Because ships get blown off course all the time, and the destination could very easily be a place known for treacherous waters or the like. After all, all of that is within the DM's notes which can be rewritten if the players haven't encountered it.

Yes it would. The timing of it is the key. If it had happened before any hint of a mutiny, that's one thing. That it happened after they mutinied and turned the ship in a new direction? Obviiiiouuuussss!

Just randomly throwing nets over the side of a ship in the middle of an ocean is not actually a reliable source of food. And, as noted, you're still going to run out of water sooner or later.

They will have line, metal to make hooks, and meat in the form of dead crew for bait. Once they catch some fish, they will have fish parts for bait.

They also might have a cleric to create water, so that might not have been a concern. We don't know about that part. Only that they had(or chose to) eat the dead sailors.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well I, for one, agree with this. As for GM limitations, how about the social contract, does that do anything for you?

Not strong enough I suspect. There apparently need to be rules on a page saying the GM has to do this or that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Isn't that circular?

"Provided the GM never does anything wrong, the GM never does anything wrong."

No, because it is about the principles underlying the GM decisions. You are just reducing those principles to 'not doing anything wrong'. And the thing you are concerned about isn't wrongness, it is railroading. So even if I was saying the thing stopping the GM from railroading, is the GM being a good GM, that still isn't circular

Also my actual argument was "If the GM is genuinely letting the players make choices, then you don't have to worry about an invisible railroad". It needs some clarification, and isn't the strongest argument in the world, but is a far cry from circular reasoning

 

[EzekielRaiden]

D&D and related games are not for you if all of that bothers you, because that's how the game has worked for the past half century and continues to work for me and the people I game with.

And yet I've played quite a bit of D&D that...didn't work that way. That wasn't the GM authoring the entirety of the world and waiting to see which dominoes I tipped over. GMs who instead worked with me and other players, who made it an actual conversation, not a dictation.