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

[Mad_Jack]

Welcome to the human experience

Can I get my admission price refunded? This place sucks - I'm heading over to the Star Trek Experience instead.

I'm glad that user blew up at me, and not in a discussion. That would've been nasty.

Yeah, we could have all ended up covered in sticky red bits of exploding poster...

I hear ya! I don't even have time to know what I'm saying.

I've decided I no longer have the time to type out my posts, so you'll all just have to assume I've made them and react accordingly.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Maybe an example would help?

In Hoard of the Dragon Queen, the first 5E hardcover adventure (and not a particularly good one), the players approach the town of Greenest at the beginning of the scenario. They spot a young green dragon flying overhead. They then go to Greenest to help the defense of the town against the attack of the Cult of the Dragon.

But they're 1st level characters. You've just teased a dragon. If they are rules-lawyer types they know the dragon is far, far more potent than 1st level characters; the lowest draconic Challenge Rating is 4 or 5, if I recall correctly. If they are roleplayers invested in their characters, they know dragons are the most powerful monsters in the Forgotten Realms; they hear stories of heroes contending with dragons... and losing! But the module has no real options for if the PCs decide not to go to Greenest. The advice given is along the lines of forcing them to go to Greenest. Because if they don't the rest of the module doesn't happen.

And that's just... that's just really terrible adventure writing. "It doesn't matter what you yourself think your character would do, the module author will tell you what your character is going to do." What? Why bother going through the rest of the scenario to the final fight? (Where it is heavily stacked against the PCs and designed so that one character will die heroically. What? What if nobody is that flavor of heroic? Not considered in the module. Someone has to die. If the PCs can't make up their minds, the BBEG will pick someone based on these criteria...)

That's basically anti-Player Agency.

And the next couple sessions of the campaign involve just telling players they have to go on dangerous missions in the town as level 1 characters with no rest who have already weathered multiple encounters, when there's a castle full of other people who could instead, many of whom are trained guards who know the terrain. And then it railroads you into trying to fight the dragon when it's a dragon!

But I think the issue here is less that it removes player agency. The beginning of campaigns often have little in the way of agency, because they have to start somewhere. Had the scenario begun with the party staying in Greenest and it then being besieged by the cultists, trapping them, I'd consider that a strong opening and it has no more agency. The reason it's a terrible note to start the campaign on is that it requires a decision that goes against character for most characters (I think they also start as paid guards for a passing caravan, so their primary obligation is to protect the caravan not the town even if they somehow think they can take on an army and a dragon). It basically draws undue attention to the artifice of a campaign, by giving the players no motivation to do the thing it needs them to do, but then demanding they do it if they want to play the campaign. I'm fine with a campaign starting with a railroad, but it should be a railroad that makes character sense for most characters. The lack of agency in the opening scenes of a campaign isn't the problem. Forcing lots of inevitable arguments between the DM and anyone roleplaying worth a damn that end with "sorry, you have no agency and your character's personality isn't allowed to matter" is a huge problem.

At the beginning of the Rambo NES game it gives you the option to stay in prison rather than go on your mission. If you choose prison it just says "the game doesn't start until you say YES" to the mission. This is basically what our DM said when we played HotDQ.

 

[Ryujin]

The flipside of this is when the baron invites your fledgling party to meet with the ambassador of a neighbouring nation, who has a job for you, and the party's 3rd level Sorcerer decides to pick a fight with said ambassador, who is a 12th level Bard, and could one-shot said Sorcerer with both hands tied behind his back. Bards get a lot of practice at that, or handcuffed to the bedpost, you see.

Cue me as DM literally, not figuratively flipping the module over my shoulder and saying, "Next."

 

[Cadence]

A: I can't stand the modern coffee shops for getting coffee!!

B: Is it the cost? The quality? The taste?

A: It's that there are too many extra things I could get with it! Frappe, caramel mocha, it goes on forever!

B: Do they not sell plain black coffee!?!?

A: They do.

B: So what's the problem?

A: They make me ignore that I could have bought the extras I didn't want!

 

[CleverNickName]

Not all Christmas music is terrible. David Bowie and Bing Crosby would like to remind us that some of it is quite good.

 

[payn]

Not all Christmas music is terrible. David Bowie and Bing Crosby would like to remind us that some of it is quite good.

 

[CleverNickName]

Ya know what? I went ahead and created a thread for it.

Let's challenge the notion that all holiday music is bad.

 

[prabe]

... But it's the way to bet.

 

[CleverNickName]

Velvet Hammer
Ingredients
A pint of your favorite vanilla ice cream
A bottle of your favorite blended whiskey

Instructions
Put two scoops of ice cream into a blender.
Add "enough" whiskey.
Blend until smooth.
Pour into a frozen pint glass.
Garnish with grated nutmeg.

 

[billd91]

I love the usual tone policing on certain topics.
And, yes, you should be detecting sarcasm in that statement.