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

[TwoSix]

I continue to be sad I mentioned tortles.

Setting that aside, there's clearly a norm at stake here that I don't think is reconcilable. This discussion really seems to be focused on a conflict about what GMs do.

If I'm completely honest, the whole appeal of the activity is the building out a fictional world. I like nitpicking the implications of tweaking magic to work just like so, or working out what a polity with a corrupt political system being run by two competing criminal organizations might look like day to day.

Fundamentally, I don't view the world as being in service to the players; it's art I'm putting together that they view through interaction (and has the fun property of changing emergently in response to their choices). If I cared a little more about narrative (or maybe characterization), I'm sure I would be writing novels, but that isn't what I'm here to do. Player input is directionally, but not collaboratively useful; I'll tailor the work to what they're interested in as consumers, but I'm not looking for co-designers.

The argument that's implicit in a lot of this is that conception of what a GM is for shouldn't be normative. It's not even a question of prerogatives over parts of the setting really, it's about what the goal of all the work is. I'm not convinced that should or does require the context of a particular set of players to determine.

Only laughing at your first sentence, BTW.

Yea, I do think that's an irreconciable difference. I certainly understand the attraction to designing world concepts and then examining their interactions in a simulated environment; that's why there are so many popular video games that do just that!

But I find it completely at-odds with what has produced compelling, face-to-face gameplay in my experience.

 

[Zardnaar]

Or the DM should sacrifice his enjoyment of the game and run a game he doesn't like so the player can have fun. Ignoring that a DM who isn't having fun isn't running a game that's fun, and is running a game that will surely self-destruct before it runs it's intended course.

Thus. I gave up on 2 games recently. Wrong three for ones players voted on. Shoukd have vetoed that and gone with the runner up in hindsight (magitech vs Norse. Norse won).

Other game was my screw up. To many people to fast.

Hyperbole.

Players ha we outvoted you do what we say.
DM cya.

DM can get a new group in a week or 2.

I got the Norse game to level 7, gave up and newbie group became main group 1. Had more fun running DoSWI.

Took another players advice over a few beers. Run what you enjoy. The enthusiasm spread from DM to players and vice versa.
Hence Eberron comment. If the players aren't really interested in Eberron and take Eberron related content its not going to be interesting for me.

Replace Eberron with any setting.

 

[Remathilis]

Fundamentally, I don't view the world as being in service to the players; it's art I'm putting together that they view through interaction (and has the fun property of changing emergently in response to their choices). If I cared a little more about narrative (or maybe characterization), I'm sure I would be writing novels, but that isn't what I'm here to do. Player input is directionally, but not collaboratively useful; I'll tailor the work to what they're interested in as consumers, but I'm not looking for co-designers.

This is so far removed from my way of doing things it could be on the other side of the galaxy. My players are not consumers. They are not there to share in the beauty of narrative. They are not expected to listen passively and provide feedback. If it wanted that, I could have been a storyteller (as in the campfire, not WoD definition). I don't want to sit on the tracks of the railroad and bask in the glory of your NPCs. I want to tell my story about my character too. If my value to you is as an audience, then get off your butt and write that novel.

 

[tetrasodium]

This is so far removed from my way of doing things it could be on the other side of the galaxy. My players are not consumers. They are not there to share in the beauty of narrative. They are not expected to listen passively and provide feedback. If it wanted that, I could have been a storyteller (as in the campfire, not WoD definition). I don't want to sit on the tracks of the railroad and bask in the glory of your NPCs. I want to tell my story about my character too. If my value to you is as an audience, then get off your butt and write that novel.

Just about every GM in this thread who said that they curated their setting or similar has at least one post noting how doing so allows their players to make significant changes in the world through their actions in play.

I once heard a like phrase "you can do anything, you just need to figure out how" in a mat coleville video and it very much applies. The figure out how is never going to be "declare it so during character creation ' and that last bit is likely true at most of the tables run by gms in this thread

 

[AlViking]

This is so far removed from my way of doing things it could be on the other side of the galaxy. My players are not consumers. They are not there to share in the beauty of narrative. They are not expected to listen passively and provide feedback. If it wanted that, I could have been a storyteller (as in the campfire, not WoD definition). I don't want to sit on the tracks of the railroad and bask in the glory of your NPCs. I want to tell my story about my character too. If my value to you is as an audience, then get off your butt and write that novel.

I don't see why you assume a well thought out setting means the characters can have no impact on the world. Nor do you have to have collaborative world building to have autonomy even if that's your preference.

A homebrew world can give characters more autonomy in my experience. Nobody's going to say you can't blow up my version of The Yawning Portal because it's such an iconic location that's required for future scenarios for example.

 

[Belen]

Never read those, are they any good? I ask because the only novels I remember with significant anthropomorphic animals were the Piers Anthony Xanth novels I read when I was a kid. I'd have to figure out stats for an anthropomorphic otter though and the books were a bit cringey looking back from what I remember.

Yes. I am a big fan. The first book is great. I have read most of the series and they were fun books but you could get away with just the first one.

 

[Epic Meepo]

This is so far removed from my way of doing things it could be on the other side of the galaxy. My players are not consumers. They are not there to share in the beauty of narrative. They are not expected to listen passively and provide feedback. If it wanted that, I could have been a storyteller (as in the campfire, not WoD definition). I don't want to sit on the tracks of the railroad and bask in the glory of your NPCs. I want to tell my story about my character too. If my value to you is as an audience, then get off your butt and write that novel.

Interesting. My goals as a player are entirely different from yours. I don't want to "tell my story about my character." (If I wanted to do that, I'd just write a story about that character.) As a player, I want to role-play what a particular person with a particular skill set would do when faced with a variety of unexpected challenges, preferably in the context of a loose narrative. I don't have any particular attachment to my character or their ultimate fate. As long as they exist in an engaging environment and provide me with meaningful agency in that world, I'm good.

Given that, I'd probably get annoyed if the DM kept trying to wrangle me into collaborative world building. I want my DM to do whatever world-building is necessary to provide me with thematic challenges to overcome and internally-consistent puzzles to solve, using whatever toolset we agreed to use in Session 0. Whatever collaboration the DM wants to do with other players is their business, so long as they aren't changing the rules I agreed to engage with after the fact.

 

[Scribe]

don't want to "tell my story about my character

Exactly. If that's the goal, go write a book.

Now I can imagine how that.doesnt work for a particular player type, but I don't want to be uncharitable in my assumptions.

 

[Bae'zel]

Again, playstyle preferences. Players and DMs enjoy different degrees of group world building. From entirely collaborative shared world to none at all where players are there to immerse themselves in someone else's world.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Run what you enjoy.

I feel like this is the important thing. DMs have to run what they enjoy. Players have to play games they enjoy. No other arrangement works.

Anytime we use the word "shouldn't" when it comes to someone's approach to the hobby, we are very likely asking them to leave the hobby in too many words. So if we are telling a bunch of people "you shouldn't play this way," we should ask ourselves, is the hobby really better off without those people?

In all likelihood the answer is no, and the "shouldn't" statement is a bit misguided. The correct one is "do what you enjoy," even if it's not what we enjoy.

That just seems like the only reasonable way to approach things to me.