The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[el-remmen]

I need to stop.

 

[payn]

Its a sad state of pizza these days. Folks who do not think pineapple should be on pizza are shrugging off new potential pizza chefs that not only eat pineapple pizza, but lie and are hypocritical about it. It's just become too important for anti-pineapple chefs to be in the kitchen to worry about character or integrity for these folks.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I need to stop.

 

[el-remmen]

"Because [D&D] is a gradual series of revelations / That occur over a period of time / It's not some carefully crafted story / It's a mess, and we're all gonna die. . "

So if you've followed my posts for any time or read my campaign story hours you know it is a hobby horse of mine to push against the idea of D&D as a story game with notions of closure or emulating narrative or cinematic conventions as a goal of the game or even any particular scene or encounter.

This is the place where if I were @Snarf Zagyg, I'd have a subtitle that said something like "Every time I hear someone say 'Everything happens for a reason' I want to punch them in the face just to prove them right."

I was listening to NPR's Fresh Air the other day and the guest host (Terry Gross was on vacay, which is why I bothered listening) was interviewing Rachel Bloom. I have never watched Crazy Ex-Girlfriend but they played a clip of one of the songs from it and I fell in love with the song (embedded below + lyrics). Not only because I agree with its view of life. . . but because that is my ideal view of D&D. If you listen to it with D&D in mind, it really kinda works. It makes me think of how in my longest and most successful D&D campaign, while the PCs resolved what became the central concern of the game, there were still about a dozen loose threads and the game ended satisfactorily after 5+ years (real-time) with the party dissolving to pursue whichever of those mattered most to them, some of which would put the PCs - now fast friends - into conflict. The End. Everyone loved it.

Also the lyric about "People aren't characters. They're complicated / And their choices don't always make sense" makes me think of all the times I've witnessed players argue about the in-game choices of another "not making sense" (something I would put the kibosh on these days). The people who play D&D characters are not characters themselves.

Anyway, I was gonna start a thread about this, but then I decided, what's the point? I'll share it in that wackadoo thread instead.

So this is the end of the movie
Whoa, whoa, whoa
But real life isn't a movie
No, no, no

You want things to be wrapped up neatly
The way that stories do
You're looking for answers
But answers aren't looking for you

Because life is a gradual series of revelations
That occur over a period of time
It's not some carefully crafted story
It's a mess, and we're all gonna die

If you saw a movie that was like real life
You'd be like, "What the hell was that movie about?
It was really all over the place"
Life doesn't make narrative sense
Nuh-uh

We tell ourselves that we're in a movie
Whoa, whoa, whoa
Each one of us thinks we've got the starring role
Role, role, role

But the truth is, sometimes you're the lead
And sometimes you're an extra
Just walking by in the background
Like me, Josh Groban!

Because life is a gradual series of revelations
That occur over a period of time
Some things might happen that seem connected
But there's not always a reason or rhyme

People aren't characters. They're complicated
And their choices don't always make sense
That being said, it's really messed-up
That you banged your ex-boyfriend's dad

Oh, never bang your ex-boyfriend's dad

 

[RealAlHazred]

tl; dr

So, if somebody wants to use D&D to make it play like a movie, that's fine. It's not how I usually like to run, but I can adjust my style if that's what people want and I've run that way at conventions and game days for people who like more scripted play. If they try it out and it works for them, that's great! I hope everybody has fun!

 

[CleverNickName]

"It's pointless! Well, except for that point. And that one too, that's a good point. Oh and that one. And that one, and that one..."

 

[Cadence]

So, if I managed to avoid commenting on something in another thread, but came here to brag about having done so, do I lose any good karma from the initial act?

 

[trappedslider]

So, if I managed to avoid commenting on something in another thread, but came here to brag about having done so, do I lose any good karma from the initial act?

yes

 

[el-remmen]

So, if somebody wants to use D&D to make it play like a movie, that's fine. It's not how I usually like to run, but I can adjust my style if that's what people want and I've run that way at conventions and game days for people who like more scripted play. If they try it out and it works for them, that's great! I hope everybody has fun!

I have no problem if people want to play that way. I just get annoyed (perhaps unreasonably so) when the assumption is that the game makes stories or plays out stories, rather than stories are made out of what happens - if you see the difference. As a GM I do not find, "that is what'd happen in X movie or novel" a compelling argument for allowing something. I'm not into playing or running D&D that way. I know there are other RPGs specifically designed to make stories. I would be willing to try one of those.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So, if I managed to avoid commenting on something in another thread, but came here to brag about having done so, do I lose any good karma from the initial act?

Karma is justice without the satisfaction.
-The Dalai Lama