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

[TwoSix]

Not far upthread you directly equated tests with "checks" in D&D; and in D&D avoiding having to make checks you don't need to is almost universally the best strategy.

Here, it seems you're saying the game actively wants players to run their PCs into these "test" situations even if it's directly contrary to what a wise character would do. As "do what the character would do" is my primary mode of play, no wonder this all seems senseless to me.

I think a lot of us take it as a given that if you're playing a different game, then your "primary mode of play" will probably change. But we also generally assume that the point of trying a new game is to have a different experience, not simply find something that's a slightly better fit for our current preferences.

 

[robertsconley]

No one is attacking you. That your thinking aligns so closely with a specific approach to play doesn’t mean that criticism of that form of play is a criticism of you.

Reread what Micah Sweet actually wrote, he’s not talking about personal attacks.

And that's fine. What I did not expect and do not want is to have to continuously defend my gaming preferences as if I were defending my dissertation proposal. I shouldn't have to pretend to be a doctoral candidate to have a discussion about different playstyles on an RPG site.

Your reply reframes his comment into a separate conversation about personal attacks, one that he wasn’t having. That kind of rhetorical pivot derails the discussion and sidesteps the underlying point: the exhaustion that comes from constantly having to defend one’s preferred style of play.

And this isn’t the first time. Throughout this thread, you’ve repeatedly redirected critiques into abstract debates about semantics. The result is a pattern where concerns get deflected rather than addressed, and where reasonable frustration gets treated as oversensitivity or misreading.

You’re a thoughtful poster, but when someone says they’re tired of justifying their playstyle, the better move isn’t to reframe that as “no one’s attacking you.” It’s to ask why that frustration keeps coming up, and what role our responses might play in fueling it.

 

[Pedantic]

I'd disagree quite strongly with that.

I think the exact opposite has happened - gamism has become so completely normalized, particularly as all WotC editions of D&D have been primarily gamist in their design approach (albeit three different ways of doing gamism), contrary to the clumsy mixture of simulationist and gamist elements in AD&D. So people don't even really note that a game is gamist anymore unless it goes the extremes 4E does (and not even always then!).

I mean, just look at Outgunned and its relatives - the primary mode of the game is pretty extremely gamist, with the dice-arranging and heavily abstracted and very game-ified mechanics, but the narrativist elements tend to attract more discussion as a GNS thing, even though they're kind of secondary and mixed with a kind of genre-based simulationism.

I'd argue that's a pretty shallow way to look at "gamism" (a term I'm frankly pretty suspicious of in both the GNS and GDS senses). See, my critique of 4e is that it was not especially gamist, particularly outside of the crunchy combat; the skill system was a step toward generic resolution, especially with skill challenges that had a clear lineage towards 5e's 5 generic difficulties and otherwise pretty non-existent skill rules. If anything, you can see narrativist leanings creeping in.

Games are about the exploration and leveraging of systems on novel board states, not the representations of those systems. It's not the presence of power cards or meta dice mechanics, it's about player agency and evaluation of results. Does a player have meaningfully (read, "mechanically") different options to pick between, and can they propose a multiple strategies, which can be discriminated between for effectiveness after evaluation.

My test these days is "show me what bad play looks like that isn't trivially avoided." If a game can't, then it's not particularly "gamist" in the sense I mean. After that, I'm looking for more than one line of "good play."

 

[robertsconley]

For situations like that, I used to make the players do a Perception check, or whatever the system equivalent was. (Spot, for example, in 3e).

Now if there's a scroll there, I just tell them.

So I have a rule that, given time and resources, the player will succeed at the task. I may have them roll if some resource could be wasted, but I am only looking for a crit failure. It was partially inspired by gumshoe, but also by reflecting on how people learn skills.

As for the scroll example, what if it is in the middle of combat or some other situation where there is limited to evaluate things? Do they still find the scroll as I described in the room? Wedged in a gap with only a small portion sticking out?

 

[DinoInDisguise]

unless you're proposing it as a "good generic system" or something equally absolutely demented.

It humors me that on a topic where we have no objective metrics, certain opinions are okay to poo-poo. 5e being good or bad as a "generic" system is unproveable either way, and completely subjective. But to state that opinion, that DnD is good, is "demented."

I think this goes to there being a hostility towards D&D. No one suggests such about Pathfinder, even though the evidence is equally as lacking for that system. But if I suggest it's a "good generic system" I am not labeled in the same way.

So at the risk of kicking too many balls, I think this is a pretty clear case of D&D hostility.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm sorry I don't buy it. I've seen discussions involving D&D there and they're almost all harmless, and just mentioning D&D doesn't get people leaping on you unless you're proposing it as a "good generic system" or something equally absolutely demented.

Thats some of the reason they’re hostile, yes, but mostly they’re sick of D&D being the 800-pound gorilla.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think a lot of us take it as a given that if you're playing a different game, then your "primary mode of play" will probably change. But we also generally assume that the point of trying a new game is to have a different experience, not simply find something that's a slightly better fit for our current preferences.

That's interesting, because basically all I want is a slightly better fit for my current preferences. The stuff I'm most interested in is variation on a theme.

 

[TwoSix]

So I have a rule that, given time and resources, the player will succeed at the task. I may have them roll if some resource could be wasted, but I am only looking for a crit failure. It was partially inspired by gumshoe, but also by reflecting on how people learn skills.

As for the scroll example, what if it is in the middle of combat or some other situation where there is limited to evaluate things? Do they still find the scroll as I described in the room? Wedged in a gap with only a small portion sticking out?

Depends on the playstyle I'm running.

More OSR style: In combat, they wouldn't notice, unless the player makes a specific declaration oriented towards asking about features of the environment that might be advantageous. Then I would narrate them noticing the scroll.

More "light-narrativism" style: I would tell the players about the scroll as soon as it's reasonably perceptible based on the scene framing.

This is just for 5e or other "D&D-adjacents". Other systems with more granular rules I would follow their specified resolution methods.

 

[TwoSix]

Thats some of the reason they’re hostile, yes, but mostly they’re sick of D&D being the 800-pound gorilla.

You can also be sick of D&D being the 800-pound gorilla while simultaneously liking the game. I still play plenty of 5e, despite the fact I would be thrilled to see it commercially capsize.

 

[TwoSix]

That's interesting, because basically all I want is a slightly better fit for my current preferences. The stuff I'm most interested in is variation on a theme.

Yea, I'm much more concerned about if a game "hits its mark" more than "what mark is it trying to hit". I love "Shadow of the Demon Lord/Weird Wizard", as an example, because it's basically D&D but better (IMO, of course). But that isn't because I only love games that try to be like D&D. I love other games precisely because they do something radically different than D&D.