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

[AlViking]

I've had "the conversation" with both players and GMs. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. But I've also joined group where there really wasn't a conversation to be had - the GM and the other players simply wanted a different game than what I wanted.

 

[Maggan]

As a player I want to experience my DMs vision of the game. Not my vision of the game, I want something else, something different from what I do when I DM.

So it follows for me to give the DM authority of the game she is running, because I think that is the most interesting to me. And I still haven't played a game where the DM totally ran rough-shod over the players, after 43 years of gaming.

Sometimes a DM does things I wouldn't do, or interprets a rule in a way I wouldn't, but I guess that happens to all of us. I don't see the need to kick up a fuss about it though.

Had some conversations about how a game was running when I didn't enjoy it, but that was always because of how some other players approached the game (PvP mindset, which I don't enjoy) and we changed some things to keep the campaign running. Or in one instance, just killed the campaign, since I had two player camps, one wanting the minis tactical aspect of D&D 4 and the other wanting more role-playing.

 

[Emerikol]

Not literally. It's a cultural reference. Enough so that there's ascii art for it.
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The point is that "bear it until you just have to leave" is... short sighted and immature.

Adults talk things through before they become unbearable or crises, if at all possible.

Don't you think you are implying not doing it your way is immature? Is that really good?

You like long tedious rules debates. My group does not. Yes we tolerate our DMs decisions because overall it is better. And I'm sure my players would say the same about me. They don't agree with everything but it is not worth losing a whole evening to arguments.

In the case of leaving a game, I don't consider leaving a game as antagonistic. I just decided I don't want to play in that campaign. Enough said. D&D, I've found is very taste driven and the game itself is so diverse in playstyle that it's best to just seek the game you like and it's no big deal if everyone agrees or not. The difference is if we want to play in DM X's game we are going to defer to DM X on his campaign.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I've had players at the table that ruined the experience for others. Fortunately rare but sadly occurs just as often or more often than hitting a bad DM. It's just a numbers thing, 1 DM versus 5 other people sitting at the table.

One DM has a lot more power to make a game unpleasant than one player.

Specific example, across several groups, I have players that cannot seem to retain how to play the game or how their character works. Slightly annoying, but they are friends and good people, and they come into their own on the roleplay side of things.

Games in which the GM doesn’t understand the rules are a lot more painful.

 

[FrozenNorth]

This is not correct. The DM can still be wrong by...

1. Violating the social contract.
2. Abusing his power and authority.

Isn’t this just 1 thing? Isn’t a GM abusing the power and authority granted to him by the players ipso facto violating the social contract?

 

[hawkeyefan]

It's fine to talk about fictional positioning and whatnot but it's not like this is anything new. As @Maxperson said above a DM can have a ancient red dragon turn that level 1 party into ash. It may even follow the fiction of the world - the dragon is the biggest threat in the region and the characters were just unlucky enough to run across it. But it would violate multiple aspects of D&D including XP budget, guidance on CR, the social contract clearly stated in the rules of making the game fun for the players.

So it's not a strawman to discuss what other games say, it's just a strawman to say that the rules of the game don't address the exact same issues in D&D. GMs in any game can ignore the rules.

Which version of D&D are you talking about? There are several where running into a red dragon at 1st level is perfectly acceptable under the right circumstances, and where things like XP budgets and CR don't even exist. Many folks would say XP budgets and the like are unnecessary, if not actually detrimental to play.

If you're talking about 5e, then no, I don't think it's a strawman to point out how clear other rule sets are. 5e is notoriously unclear about its processes.

It's not about breaking rules... it's about there being specific rules.

 

[Campbell]

I wasn't trying to say anything about D&D. I meant the previous as an addendum to the one before. Basically, to clarify that when people are talking about the rules binding the GM in games like Apocalypse Keys there are not really dealing with the nuances involved. That the rules expect the GM to do the basic duties of what the job entails for the game. That there's no need to do the specific rulings you need to do in games like D&D because the game provides you with a lot of flexibility to frame scenes, determine when moves should apply and to determine what happens next while still being bound to the rules because GM Judgement is part of the rules.

The rules aren't particularly binding if you want to actually run the game in question. It's pretty similar to D&D that way.

It seems to me what folks who don't run these games and have no interest in running them are objecting is the basic requirements of the job which is just another way to say don't make narrativist games. I don't get the objection. No one is telling anyone to run games they do not want to run. It seems like folks don't want to provide any space for people to design games not meant for them, no matter how niche.

For the last time, hopefully, I run trad games too. I'm playing in what is planned to be a six-month long Wraith - The Oblivion game. I have plans to run the Stormlight Archive RPG after that and we're also interested in Warhammer - The Old World. I'm just trying to correct the record that games like Apocalypse World rely on a lot of GM Judgement. That they are not going to protect players from GMs or GMs from poor players - they are written (AW in particular) with the assumption that you could play freeform and have functional play.

Note: This was also meant to address those who believe games like Dungeon World protect the players from poor GMing. It might make it a bit more obviously when GMs are moving funny, but like the broad authority is there. Sometimes even more.

 

[Faolyn]

Don't you think you are implying not doing it your way is immature? Is that really good?

You like long tedious rules debates. My group does not. Yes we tolerate our DMs decisions because overall it is better. And I'm sure my players would say the same about me. They don't agree with everything but it is not worth losing a whole evening to arguments.

In the case of leaving a game, I don't consider leaving a game as antagonistic. I just decided I don't want to play in that campaign. Enough said. D&D, I've found is very taste driven and the game itself is so diverse in playstyle that it's best to just seek the game you like and it's no big deal if everyone agrees or not. The difference is if we want to play in DM X's game we are going to defer to DM X on his campaign.

He's not talking about "long tedious rules debates" being mature. He's talking about talking problems out with the group as being mature, whereas table-flipping (or its verbal equivalents) to be immature. If you leave a game and just ghost the DM, that's immature. If you leave a game and say "I don't want to play because of XYZ," that's (probably) more mature. (Depending on what XYZ are, of course.)

 

[Enrahim]

There is no word prior to the disagreement, yes. But once we finally discover that there's a huge disagreement that needs to be reconciled, we have to go through the painful, laborious process of turning unwritten into written, so that we can reconcile it. When it is unwritten, unspoken, invisible, it's not possible to reconcile those deep disagreements because we have no words to express them.

I am sorry, but as I said I don't think I have ever encountered a situation that matches what you describe here. In particular the premise "need to be reconciled" is one I have a hard time envisioning how could be the case. The "agree to disagree" and continue amicable relations are a very well known technique for a reason.

For instance a relative common case I have seen in relationships (outside the scope of games) is that there might be a major underlying difference in perspective that is expressed in a spesific way. Often it is possible to find a practical arrangement both can live with that covers that spesific expression, without trying to unpack the entire underlying problem. It might not be an ideal way of doing things, especially in the context of deeper relationships. In the context of a game however you can often get away with it, or at least throw in a quickpatch until it can be furter hashed out out of session.

And if you are unable to find aproperiate words even out of session, then trying to establish a good answer to the problem situation up front trough written rules, without even being aware of this being a potential issue seem a bit ambitious?

How do you then resolve a deep disagreement where person 1 says "A" and means <X> but person 2 says "A" and means <Y>? The differences are entirely obscured by not having words to express them.

If both person 1 and person 2 are able to say "A" Then you are aleady in the domain of words? That is I fail to see how the exact same problem doesn't also apply for written rules?

Well. I was more meaning how we've had to do things like spend 500+ posts hashing out what "simulation" means before we can even begin having a conversation of any utility.

Yes. As I have said I am not happy with the language we have available. That however is also a problem with written rules, isn't it? If words with poorly defined meaning is used in a rules text that would give the same problems as if you for instance carelessly mentioned it oraly when pitching a game (creating unintended expectations)

I don't see how it's not utterly essential to this topic. Those strong opinions are where the aforementioned "person 1 says 'A' and means <X> but person 2 says 'A' and means <Y>" situations arise. If strongly-held opinions cannot, even in principle, be reconciled--if person 2 will never, under any circumstance, ever accept that 'A' should mean <X> and not <Y> even under limitations--then person 2 is unwilling to cooperate with others. The only result they'll ever accept is total capitulation to their opinions. That's an insoluble situation, and thus, such people absolutely should not be playing any game, TTRPG or not.


Certainly more than "cannot play games". They'll almost certainly struggle with all parts of socializing in our world. There's a joke I'm tempted to crack here but it might run afoul of bringing IRL topics into game discussion.

Well, this might be so, but I still do not see how these observations are relevant with regard to prefering rules to be written rather than unwritten?

They're in a stronger position because how can you tell them they're wrong when there's no information to base that on?

It's stronger by way of being almost totally immune to refutation.

If they make a claim shaped as a objective truth claim rather than as an expression of subjective opinion, I tought pointing out the complete lack of evidence for the claim was considered a solid refutation?

I mean, maybe they do, but general conversation isn't what is most relevant here, is it? It's how we resolve ambiguous situations. That's what gaming is....kind of about? If we could just declare resolutions to ambiguities, we'd truly be doing pure improv theater (or freeform roleplay, more or less the same thing). Relying on unwritten, unspoken, invisible rules in order to resolve ambiguities is extremely likely to, sooner or later, produce an ambiguity where critical parts of what make it ambiguous are obscured behind the things we have no words for because they've been offloaded into the "invisible rulebooks". That's when the nightmare begins.

This is a new perspective on gaming to me. As such I might not quite get what you are trying to say here. However I will still try to give it a go.

I think in one way I must fully grant you the point in the scope of how I understand your statement's relevancy. I fully agree that the central ambiguities that make out the game should be determined by explicit rules provided prior to resolution, preferably in written form. I think for instance fudging is either cheating or otherwise invalidating the game in this sense. And Illusionism would be making it look like there is a game when there is indeed none.

However the problem is that I am pretty sure there isn't, and can never be, a TTRPG that resolves all game relevant fictional ambiguities via game in this sense via explicit rules. An attempt at doing so would likely be recognised as some more traditional type of board game like experience. Even if for instance the outcome of the written rules demand something interesting to happen and list a lot of principles for how such an interesting thing should be chosen, this will in general not be able to single out a unique possible narration of the outcome. The details not specified would become part of the fiction and hence could fuel future ambiguities to be resolved via game.

So how to resolve this ambiguity about which of possibly thousands of possible narration to use? I think all ttrpgs rely on one of the participants (don't need to be the GM) to just declare a resolution. And moreover I believe all TTRPGS to some extent depend on the one singled out to provide this declaration to take into account a number of unwritten rules when making this declaration. A game can try to limit the scope of this disambiguity by explicit rules, and hence somewhat reduce the dependency on unwritten rules - but I dont think it can ever be fully eliminated.

So this reduces the central question to: How much of what happens in a TTRPG should be determined by written rules? All is not an available answer, and indeed the more you approaches that limit, the less flexible and more board-game like the experience become. However as you point out the other extreme enters pure improv/freeform territory.

And I have to emphasise there are nothing wrong with improv/freeform or board games! I can highly enjoy all of these activities. And that also mean I can enjoy a wide range of TTRPG aproaches. However being overly concerned about unwritten rules can make that problematic. For one thing it seem like something you can never fully escape, and if you try to limit it you quickly paint yourself into the board game like corner - potentially missing out on some of what then full breadth of what TTRPGing has to offer.

 

[Campbell]

People are free to organize their play however they want. But assuming the whole hobby either is or should be organized on a take it or leave it perspective is misguided. I know my group would be unusual in the mainstream, but we have 5 total players (including whoever the current GM is). 3 of us pretty much rotate running either shorter games or 6-month to 1-year-long campaigns. It's fairly normal for us to be open about what we want out of a particular game and even conditionally agree to a given campaign based on saw it focusing on this or that part of the setting or the GM focusing on social intrigue in our L5R game. It's also not unusual for players to voice how they want each other to play.

Groups like mine are the sort of groups a lot of these indie games are written for. We have a different way of moving in this space. Not everything has to conform to mainstream standards of play or be written for that culture.