D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[EzekielRaiden]

Yea, that's pretty much it.

GMs who make homebrewed settings and then stay them in for years or decades are essentially making personal fantasy heartbreakers. They have a mental image of what D&D should look like, and their setting is where they get to assert the truth of that mental image.

I've used this analogy before, but it's essentially the same psychology that divides those who prefer prescriptivist grammar and those who are descriptivist. It's the desire for constancy and certainty, versus the desire for ambiguity and novelty.

Ironically, I used to be one of those hardcore prescriptivist folks. (I bet that's an absolute shocker to anyone who's known me on here for more than five minutes.) But I was sold descriptivism by prescriptivist reasoning. It was more complex than this and like fifteen years ago, so I don't remember the precise details, but it was something loosely like: "You only decline pronouns. But English had a declension system. Now it doesn't. Why is 20th c. English 'correct' grammar and (say) 6th c. English grammar 'incorrect'?" The one and only answer is that what people chose to do changed, over a long period of time. There isn't a Platonic ideal of English. There is just, to quote the infamous phrasebook, "English As She Is Spoke".

If they discuss the crime of killing someone with an axe. Plan out how they could do it. And buy the axe, they never need to act to actually commit the crime at all to be convicted of conspiring to commit murder. Even though talking and buying axes are not illegal, and nobody acted to commit murder.

But they did commit an act. They planned it out and bought the axe. That's a concrete act as part of the planning.

If all you ever did was think about committing murder, but you never bought a weapon, never approached the victim, etc., then you have committed no crime. Yet, by your claimed standard, merely having the thought is enough to be guilty of attempted murder. Legally, it's bupkis. You need SOME concrete deed, even if that deed is not itself a thing.

For conspiracy to commit a crime, you need proof that some kind of agreement was made, and proof that someone did something material to bring that about.

You'll also note that, commensurate with the much, much lower but non-zero actus reus requirement, "conspiracy to X" charges carry lesser sentences, usually lesser even than

Intent is the most important thing. For those crimes you just listed, you still generally have to have intended to do the act.

Yes...but you also absolutely HAD to DO something.

Intent, alone, without any actual deed, is not and cannot be a crime. Thoughtcrime is not a thing. Yes, intent absolutely matters and can be what clinches or derails a prosecution. But even if you could literally read a person's mind and objectively prove that they had desired to commit murder, if they never actually DO it, it's not a crime. It's a simple as that. You need a concrete act, or mens rea is irrelevant.

Let's say I kill someone. What was the crime committed or was there even a crime committed? Tell me without knowing the intent.

Let's say I desire to kill someone. What crime was committed, or was there even a crime committed? Tell me without knowing the actions I performed.

The argument swings both ways. Without any actual deed committed, my intent is legally meaningless. Without the correct "guilty mind", the deed is equally meaningless. Guilty act and guilty mind are individually necessary and jointly sufficient to prove legal culpability. No amount of insistence will change the fact that a guilty mind with no guilty act cannot be a crime. Even if I outrightly intended to commit a crime, as I repeatedly said.

If you were following the posts, you'd have seen the context when it first came up.

Having read the context, I don't see how it's not exactly what was meant. Negligence is still punishable, even if you never intended anything evil. Recklessness is still punishable, even if your recklessness was born from irrational exuberance, to use the pithy phrase.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've used this analogy before, but it's essentially the same psychology that divides those who prefer prescriptivist grammar and those who are descriptivist. It's the desire for constancy and certainty, versus the desire for ambiguity and novelty.

Not in all cases. I push descriptive grammar because I think getting focused on prescriptive grammar is trying to sweep back the tide with a broom; it ignores reality in an attempt to do something that can't be done, in practice.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So the one quote you have from me in that spoiler 1) has me saying I'm for compromise, 2) is in the context of the discussion around total capitulation being mandated by the player in allowing the playing of the tortle, in this case mandating that the DM allow in a race that would negatively impact his enjoyment of the game, and 3) was in response to @Dire Bare saying it's about prioritizing player fun over world building(DM fun).

So yes, why is the player's fun more important than the DM's? Why should the DM's fun take the backseat? That's are not questions that say that discussion about compromise shouldn't happen or might not be fruitful.

One: Surely there is more fun to GMing than just worldbuilding. Otherwise, most GMs would simply stop bothering with all the rules stuff, and go write books, y'know? Or at least settings.

Two: Your questions, even if you mean them with no ill intent, again make it a hard binary. Either the GM has fun because their worldbuilding is absolutely sacrosanct, or the players have fun and utterly destroy that worldbuilding. Nothing else can come out. One side gets to have fun, the other side gets pooped on.

I reject that binary. The worldbuilding may or may not warrant some flexibility. The players may or may not warrant flexibility themselves. It's not cut and dried.

 

[mamba]

I suggested a mutant or offshoot lizard man (either using the stats of lizardfolk if the AC was a concern or just a lizardfolk who grew a shell and has Tortle stats). To me, that akin to a lizardfolk who looks like a gecco or iguana. It was literally my first offer for compromise and I was counter offered a human in a turtle costume.

ok, I thought you insisted on both, so you were ok with one of the two compromises and the DM was looking for the other (no turtle visuals)

 

[Thomas Shey]

I would encourage everyone to take my words at face value. I do not hide my meaning, I'm not that good at this forum thing.

My words:



Notice they did not say:



I hope you reconsider my position based on what I actually said, because I assure you that your reading is incorrect.

I don't doubt you're sincere here, but I will note that there's some semantic loading in "onus" as used in that sentence. It often is a roundabout way of saying "and good luck trying." At the very least it tends to imply it'd be an uphill battle.

 

[TwoSix]

Why does an official publisher get a free pass to make a D&D setting with constraints but DM's don't?

Say I wanted to run a Witcher campaign using the D&D system. An official publisher does the same (using the D&D system). Both have species and class restrictions. Why is the DM going against the grain here, but not the publisher?

Why the assumption that DM's just can't get it right? Or that they're always acting in bad faith or personality flaws?

That's what's bothering me about this thread. This feels like "don't make up your own stuff, buy your settings".

There's a few things going on here.

First, you're talking about a complete setting modification, not simply a ban list. If you set up a restricted concept for a game (like "let's all play a family of gnome wizards") and the players and GM are in alignment, that's totally fine. I don't consider "my personal heartbreaker setting" to be the same thing as a specific campaign framing. "Specific, easily transmittable idea" is good, GM's pages of notes not good.

If you and your players are in agreement on playing in a Witcher setting, then you don't need a restricted list, do you? The players aren't going to ask to play a tortle in a Witcher setting if they're familiar with it. And if you have players who don't understand that a tortle isn't appropriate for a Witcher game, than maybe a Witcher game wasn't the best idea.

Publishers get a free pass (from me) because they give you a pretty book with all the important ideas spelled out, that I can hand to the players and say "We're running from this." That's a much easier buy-in than the GM saying "I have a bunch of ideas, here's a printout of the important parts."

I'm sure some GMs can and do "get it right", but there's a whole lot of Dunning-Kruger among GMs about their worldbuilding chops.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

is a tortle that has tortle stats but looks like a lizardman still a tortle? Are lizardman stats in a tortle body a tortle?

Is at least one of them acceptable to the player and GM? So far the answer is yes for the GM and no for the player…

Actually, as others have said, it's been "unacceptable" and "unacceptable" from the GMs, and "acceptable but not first preference" and "literally the first proposal, which was outright rejected" from the players.

And, as always, it depends on the players. Just as whether "bipedal turtle-like physiology" is a consistency problem, an aesthetics problem (which has nothing to do with setting consistency...), a mechanics problem, or a...different kind of problem, will depend on the individual tastes and interests of the GM.

 

[mamba]

It’s a matter of what aspect of playing a tortle appeals to the player. Which is why it needs to be discussed. Is it the mechanics? Is it the appearance? Is it the theme? Did something you said about the campaign give the player a really cool story idea?

I agree, it needs to be discussed, that was the whole point, but the answer frequently enough was ‘it needs to be a tortle, nothing else will do’

 

[AlViking]

I'm going to assume then your world also has a carefully currated list of magic and monsters as well? There is no "a wizard did it" owlbears because "create owlbear" isn't a wizard spell? That all NPCs are bound to the same limitations as PCs when it comes to magic and you can, in theory, catalogue every species in the world because they are finite and new ones are never added?

Vast majority of monsters are humanoid from my list. Others from the shadowfell, feywild and so on. About the only monsters that were created are constructs.

Of course there are some standard D&D monsters as well but it's not like they're popping up willy nilly.

But even if they were, so what. Not interested in my game? Don't join.

 

[TwoSix]

So the one quote you have from me in that spoiler 1) has me saying I'm for compromise, 2) is in the context of the discussion around total capitulation being mandated by the player in allowing the playing of the tortle, in this case mandating that the DM allow in a race that would negatively impact his enjoyment of the game, and 3) was in response to @Dire Bare saying it's about prioritizing player fun over world building(DM fun).

So yes, why is the player's fun more important than the DM's? Why should the DM's fun take the backseat? That's are not questions that say that discussion about compromise shouldn't happen or might not be fruitful.

Because the GM should not be having fun saying "No, you can't do X."

"Fun" really has nothing to do with this topic. It's about the validity of maintaining a certain aesthetic for your setting, weighed against the cost of denying another player an option they feel would be relevant and enjoyable in play.

It's not a binary; it's a scale where you need to consider the relative value of the costs involved.