NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8444660" data-attributes="member: 16814">I don't really care how they choose to see it.  Most of them have never done anything differently.  I look at what's happening in play -- and what's often relayed (when you can get anything) is a very passive -- as in not much is actually demanded of the player by the game -- experience.  The players receive the fiction from the GM who has sole authority to create this (and the expectation).  The players marshal resources and manipulate this fiction to find a why to get the GM to narrate the next bit of fiction.  And the GM responds by narrating the next bit, or narrating a failure of the manipulation and the cycle starts again.  I mean, the basic 5e play loop has been repeatedly cited and banged hard upon in this very thread.There's some nuance -- players may be expected to have a backstory with some drama, but then they wait until the GM shines the spotlight at them so that they know they're on stage.  However, the play really doesn't change much, because what usually happens is that the GM is still inventing and presenting the fiction, just with an eye to engaging whatever the player hook was.  There's been a good amount of discussion about a player looking for their brother only to get tasked by a faction to do a non-backstory thing to get a backstory clue, and that the GM may have already determined that the brother was dead without checking with the player.  This was presented without irony as a totally normal thing to do.  The player, in all of this, is entirely passive.  They don't even declare actions.  But this is held out as normal play!And it is!  If I were playing 5e, I would not be the least surprised by this play.  It's what I expect.  I'm not playing 5e to put my stamp on the fiction and forge forwards on a personally defining quest, to learn about my characters and be surprised by that learning, to learn about the setting and surprise the GM with that learning along with myself.  It's not the point.  The whole combat minigame exists to add some bits of control and engagement, but it's extremely shallow on the fiction front while very heavy on the manipulation of the fiction pieces the GM provides front.  All in all, the experience of playing D&D is pretty passive.  I mean, there's a whole branch of approach called "beer and pretzels."   The primary goal of D&D is not uncommonly referred to as "kill things and take their stuff."  These aren't derogatory statements, they're fans talking about a game they love!  But they certainly are showcasing a pretty passive approach to play, given the entirety of ways to play.</blockquote>

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