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

[zakael19]

Yeah, I don't quite get the complaint. When 4E came out, I was a bit bummed, but I just went back to playing older editions. You can't can't really control the mainstream space of a hobby. I'd love it if modern movies were more like classic films, but that isn't going to happen. It isn't other peoples fault if they like Marvel movies or things with more CGI than I enjoy.

One observation I have here is back when we first got into publishing, Bill, my business partner, and I used to always say "Pathfinder and D&D are king" because anytime we went to a convention, a game store or any kind of public venue for playing RPGs, it was split down the middle: half the tables were pathfinder, and half were D&D. But it seems like D&D pretty much reclaimed its central position in recent years (perhaps Stranger Things is a contributing factor?)

Honestly the CR phenomenon has been huge at getting people to try 5e. The game I ran for 1st timers in late 23-mid ‘24 were all big CR fans, but had never played. My Tuesday group got spurred to play TTRPGs by CR. I think that the crowd coming in from that direction is probably more apt to try different things, especially with Daggerheart on the shelf now and having so many “we grabbed inspiration and ideas from all these other games - check them out.” The swathe of gamers here to “tell a story together” seem open to possibilities that foster certain types of stories or narrative priorities (see: the de-emphasis of frequent combat encounters in a lot of play).

 

[Faolyn]

@pemerton has a lot of experience with 4e, so he should know what encounters are.

Ah, gotcha.

 

[SableWyvern]

Because the bulk of it simply seemed to be in agreement with what I'd said all along: you do what you do because you feel like doing it, and you avoid what you avoid because you feel like avoiding it. In other words, there are no actual limits. If ever you felt like railroading in a game would add something to it, you'd do it, no? The only limit is "I don't feel like crossing that line right now."


Mostly? I'll be honest: I didn't fully read the final part of the post, because I'd gotten 3/4 through it and found nothing meriting a response. That is harsh, I admit, but...it's how I felt. I skimmed over the last bit which, unfortunately, really was the meat and potatoes and is what I should have read. So I apologize for not fully reading everything you wrote. That was a bad choice. If I may correct that error now:

Yes, I opened with that because I think it's important to establish that you're not technically wrong about those things.

I think the main reason people push back isn't because your perspective is objectively wrong, but because those things just aren't a meaningful concern for us.

As an extreme example, someone might talk about how the sun might not rise tomorrow. I might say, "Well, technically, it might not, so I guess you're right, but realistically I assume it will." Or, I might just say, "Yes, it will."

I believe that when people are pushing back on you with a lot of stuff, it's not that there isn't some some potential kernel of truth in there somewhere, it's just that these things are non-issues to us. When you ask questions like, "How do I know the GM isn't secretly railroading," I immediately think, "I don't need to know. I assume they're not. This question is irrelevant to what I do and how I go about it."

Clearly, the question, and the answer is important to you though, and we start butting heads. But it seems I don't really understand why you care, and you don't understand why I don't, and I'm not sure there's any way for us to understand each other on something like this.

But there is a bigger component, which is not mentioned among the things you've said here. That component is that you--and others--have not only insisted that this is a way to do sandbox-y play. Rather, that it is the best way to do so, and that other systems not only are not as good, they actually interfere with or prevent sandbox-y play. Back when the discussion was about prep stuff, regarding comments from Hussar, that very much was what several people directly and explicitly claimed. Not just that collaborative creation, or GM-less games, or games with rules that apply to the GM as well as to players, are a different kind of sandbox-y play (which would be objectively correct, they are!); not just that there are differences (again, objectively correct); but that this is the highest form of sandbox-y play.

I think I did address this. These ways of running a sandbox work best for us. Other ways would, in fact, interfere with our sandboxes.

While there have been plenty of statements made in this thread that might be read as absolutes about one playstyle being better than another, I think almost everyone has clarified at some point that they're talking about what works best for them. That being the case, I don't see any reason to fixate on the fact that, at some point, somewhere in this thread, someone made an absolute statement that seemed to imply that their way was best.

If you see a new such statement being made, and you feel it genuinely is an absolute, call it out, sure. But fixating on what was said 2,500 posts ago, when people have added more nuance and clarification since then, isn't going to achieve anything.

The things you keep calling "bickering" or trivialities etc. aren't trivialities to me. They're extremely important. So when someone tells me there are restrictions on the GM's freedom, restrictions beyond what the GM feels like doing, I want to know what those are. Those are of nearly indescribable importance, because they shape nearly everything about the play-experience. They set boundaries. They mark what cannot be touched--e.g. the bit a fair ways upthread where some folks almost seemed taken aback to consider that "The GM must respect what the player rolls" is a binding GM restriction. When someone says they are guided by "principles", I want to know what those principles are, because that's how they and I get on the same page. When someone says they have "guidelines", I need to know what those guidelines are so I can know where I'm being guided to. Etc.

Hence I've pressed--for clarity, for specificity, against vagueness, against passing-the-buck. And it seems that now, at last...we've ended up where I started from the beginning. As argued above, the restriction is, "Because the DM feels like it would make a better experience." Nothing more, nothing less. And I don't take that very seriously as a "restriction".

I mean, it was already clear you don't consider it much of a restriction. On the other hand, some of us find that it is very effective one, that provides exactly what we need from that game. Much of my previous response was an effort to try and explain why that is.

If you decide that the style of play being described isn't one you like, that's fine. You seem to understand what we mean by restrictions, sufficiently so that you've formed the opinion they're not restrictive enough. Arguing about whether or not the word restriction should or should not be used isn't going to achieve anything.

What would satisfy me would be either...

(A) When one says one has "principles" or "guidelines" etc., talking about what they are, rather than just using a single high-abstraction word. Even if you can't bring to mind any specific words, talk about what you do! Give me an actual-play example with or without the details filed off (I respect your players' privacy) that walks through your reasoning and where important principles applied, or invent one. (Both things I have personally done in this thread.)

I linked my ACKS sandbox actual play thread earlier, in which I talk quite a bit about what I'm doing as GM, and why. You are welcome to draw any conclusions you want from that about how I run a sandbox. If you have specific question about why I did what at any point, I would be happy to answer them as best I can, whether here or there.

(B) Recognize that the "principle" is literally just gut feeling. If that's actually all it is, just say that, rather than throwing up words like "realism" and "consistency" and "plausibility" etc. as though it truly did have a structured, philosophical underpinning that is somehow ineffable. It's perfectly fine to just say "I do what feels right", if that is in fact what you do. That recognizes that there really isn't any particular pattern or rubric or principle or guideline etc., it's just following gut instinct where it leads. Nothing wrong with using intuition in a leisure-time exercise....if we recognize it as intuition, and not as a procedure or principle that can be discussed. (Not something I personally have done in this thread, since...that's not what I do. But if it were, I'd say so; e.g. if the conversation were about how I balance custom moves in DW, I really do kinda just do that by intuition, on the basis of the loose statistical spread of results I've seen in play, and then tweak it later if it falls short in one way or another.)

I would not describe it as "literally just gut feeling", but there is certainly a fair bit of that.

I have said at various points in this thread that one thing you need is a set of expectations that are reasonable well aligned. If the GMs rulings, whether from the gut or otherwise, are aligned with the players expectations, then all is likely to work. If expectations are not aligned, then they will not.

The rubric, then, is consistent decision making that is aligned with the established and accepted principles within the group as to what is and is not reasonable.

I absolutely acknowledge that such a statement remains somewhat fuzzy. It absolutely cannot be distilled down to a set of clear, unambiguous laws or rules that easily be applied to any situation and spit out results without any kind judgement call.

If to you, that means "literally just gut feeling" then so be it, that's the way you feel about it. It is absolutely your prerogative to feel that way. I'm not going to agree that that is all it is, because as I just explained, I feel it is more than only that, but I don't feel strongly enough about the difference to consider it's worth carrying on the argument about it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Everywhere.

You talked about a PC needing to get blood. He ran into the room, hoping to get blood from a wounded person. Instead, he found an assassin and a corpse. That’s an encounter.

Is it? Do you think this situation was written down ahead of time? With boxed text and a statblock?

Or do some games work differently such that the idea of bypassing an encounter is an odd way to view things?

Bypassing, to me, implies something set… something that’s already established.

Does that always need to be the case?

 

[Kromanjon]

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

Also @EzekielRaiden misrepresented the intent of that post so it doesn’t prove his point at all.

 

[Faolyn]

Is it? Do you think this situation was written down ahead of time? With boxed text and a statblock?

Or do some games work differently such that the idea of bypassing an encounter is an odd way to view things?

Bypassing, to me, implies something set… something that’s already established.

Does that always need to be the case?

You just don’t answer questions, do you?

Look, that was an encounter. You know what encounters are. It literally doesn’t matter if you came up with it ages in advance or if you decided it on the spur of the moment. And if you decided, on the spur of the moment, that there would be an assassin killing the guy, and the PC then changed their mind and decided to get blood somewhere else or to stand up to the naga or do something other than encounter the assassin, it’s a bypassed encounter. And since @Micah Sweet has pointed out that you have played D&D4e, you can’t hide behind this pretend ignorance anymore.

Edit: apologies; I thought I was responding to @pemerton, so some of the above doesn’t apply. But my point still stands.

 

[Enrahim]

Why? If they want to go somewhere else then IMO it's on you-as-DM to run that, even if you have to cover with random encounters until you can more fully prep something for next week.

The proposal here was to have a meta chat. In your group that might not be neccessary, as you have already agreed to this being the drill. However for most groups I think this is sound advice. I think most players would at the very least like to be informed that the result of skipping your carefully planned dungeon is going to be an evening of random encounters before committing to that action.

I think it would be very important for you to get feedback from your players why you could have misread them so completely that you wasted your time preparing a dungeon you thought they would find enticing. Maybe there was some crucial element in your "advertising" they missed?

Another issue here is if there was a clear initiative taker in the player group to avoid the dungeon (which I think there almost certainly would be in a real case of this) in that case the power dynamics at hand might be so that a single player could effectively railroad the game. The GM is in a particular place to railroad, but are generally not doing so. There has been mentioned a lot of reasons for this in this thread, but I would emphasize training and traditions that has instilled in them a sense of "right". However a player can also try take too much control, and they do not have the same training and tradition to guide them how to use such great power responsibly. This would also be a reason to take a timeout to hash things out.

 

[hawkeyefan]

You just don’t answer questions, do you?

Look, that was an encounter. You know what encounters are. It literally doesn’t matter if you came up with it ages in advance or if you decided it on the spur of the moment. And if you decided, on the spur of the moment, that there would be an assassin killing the guy, and the PC then changed their mind and decided to get blood somewhere else or to stand up to the naga or do something other than encounter the assassin, it’s a bypassed encounter. And since @Micah Sweet has pointed out that you have played D&D4e, you can’t hide behind this pretend ignorance anymore.

You’ve mistaken me for @pemerton .

I’m simply offering a slightly different take to perhaps bridge the gap.

I don’t think “encounters” is a universal term in RPGs. I know what it is for some games, but I’d also say there are games for which the term doesn’t really make as much sense.

Encounters are, in my experience, something planned (as would be the case for a map & key type dungeon) or something determined randomly (as would be the case on a regional random encounter table).

These are generally things that I’ve crafted ahead of time, or may procedurally generate with tables, depending on the game. Given the way I run even trad games, they also may be something I make up on the fly, as needed in play.

But I don’t tend to think of encounters as like a unit of play for many of the other games I run. It just doesn’t make much sense given how those games work. So in those cases, I don’t think the idea of bypassing an encounter makes sense.

 

[Lanefan]

Is it? Do you think this situation was written down ahead of time? With boxed text and a statblock?

Or do some games work differently such that the idea of bypassing an encounter is an odd way to view things?

Bypassing, to me, implies something set… something that’s already established.

That there's five guards on the drawbridge may have become established only when the PCs first saw said drawbridge; or it may have become established earlier through the PCs' info-gathering and scouting (they're allowed to do that, right?) that there's usually between 4 and 6 guards there at any given time.

That the PCs then choose not to engage with the guards and instead find another way into the castle sure sounds like a bypassed encounter to me.

Does that always need to be the case?

No. See above.

But I do worry that there seems to be a vague underlying expectation that, when the PCs declare their intent to get into the castle, the GM is supposed to frame the PCs as being on the drawbridge* and thus force them to interact with the guards whether they want to or not.

* - or at some other point of challenge to their intent, without giving any opportunity to avoid said challenge or even choose its nature.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I find the description of "missed encounter" extremely counterintuitive.

Encounters missed/avoided were either planned via map-key, alluded to (as per my example upthread), or avoided by tactic, missed via timing etc.

I mean, it's not a phrase I've ever used to describe my life (snip)

I missed your birthday party, I missed your dad's funeral, I missed my aeroplane, I missed my doctor's appointment. This is all common parlance and those are all encounters.

i.e. the DM planned several encounters in the fortress but the PCs tactics ensured they avoided/missed/bypassed them all by using Teleport to find their way straight to the dungeons to rescue their comrade.