D&D General Violence and D&D: Is "Murderhobo" Essential to D&D?

[WayOfTheFourElements]

You are trying to count angels on the head of a pin and argue that things don’t have their commonly accepted meaning, without offering any compelling arguments why your altenate ‘meaning’ should hold or have weight.

Do you have sources showing to what extend people share commonly meanings of abstract words. I've been looking for some hard research on the subject for quite a while.

I'm not presenting an alternate meaning.

 

[Rdm]

Do you have sources showing to what extend people share commonly meanings of abstract words. I've been looking for some hard research on the subject for quite a while.

I'm not presenting an alternate meaning.

Those words are not abstract. I’m pulling the actual literal definitions.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Not “for me”. In actuality. By definition.

I don't know. Like I said I could challenge myself to see how quickly I can finish a 6th-grade algebra exam, but I don't believe that activity is accompanied by an degree of physical risk or risk of failure.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Those words are not abstract. I’m pulling the actual literal definitions.

Literal definition are abstract. I can look up the word "culture" in a dictionary and still have a vague idea of what it really refers to.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Not according to every definition of the word I've experienced outside of this exact conversation.

We hang out in different crowd then, I guess. Getting drunk with linguistic philosophers is fun. I highly recommend it.

uh... literally everyone? Or maybe it'd be more accurate to say "anyone"?

Yes. Anyone has the ability to proscribe a definition for themselves, but who has the authority to proscribe a definition for others?

Well, let's just say that it means I feel there is reason to suspect that the things you are saying are not things that you yourself believe to be accurate based on nothing more than how distinctly outlandish the statements appear to be.

What have I said I don't believe. Can you give me an example?

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

I think we've strayed quite far from the original topic and I don't foresee us making much progress returning to it. So, nice discussion everyone. I hope you have a wonderful day.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yes, now that we're done with our post-modern words have no stable definition moment, back on track. If we want to have a Jacques Derrida talks TTRPG theory thread it should be it's own thing. I'd love to recreate the text of Glas in a two column mobius strip that has, on the one side, the text of the 5E PHB, and on the other, something more like FATE's Houses of the Blooded. There's probably something more Jean Genet that HotB, but I can't think of a good example.

Are we all back in our happy place where notions like overcome a challenge have at least a soupcon of shared meaning, and no one is seriously suggesting that killing random shopkeepers be awarded with XP? I think a profitable line of discussion might be what does encounter design look like when it isn't based on monster kill XP? I think that opens up a lot of interesting design space for D&D games.

@WayOfTheFourElements - getting drunk with Linguistic Philosophers is a hoot, I agree.

 

[Umbran]

I can't wait for Battlefield 6 next year.

So, the implication is that, since a videogame has violent content, our RPGs must too?

Probably the most popular videogame around recently has been Animal Crossing. No so much death and destruction there.

 

[BrokenTwin]

Most of the groups I've played and run for since... well, since I started playing, have used D&D as escapism to distract them from the banality of being stuck in a situation where they're working customer service jobs with people constantly treating them as subhuman and not being able to retaliate without risk of losing their jobs. So D&D is an outlet for their repressed aggression. Which usually translates to killing monsters without having to think about it too hard. I used to enjoy playing in that same mindset, but since the prospect of violent confrontation has grown significantly in my personal world due to current political discourse in North America, I'm not as fond of escaping into a world that focuses on violence.

There's plenty of arguments showcasing how D&D is focused towards combat, like the core class structure of the game, and I'm not going to rehash them here. I do want to note that there are adventure-focused tabletop RPGs that don't make combat a mechanical priority (like Ryuutama), but I'm pretty sure pigs will fly before I can convince any of my groups to play one.

 

[Mirtek]

So, the implication is that, since a videogame has violent content, our RPGs must too?

isn't the topic of this thread that random senseless violence in games is a bad thing? Because that's the Basis of a huge number of tripple A games selling millions of copies.

For each Sims or Animal Crossing without violence or Last of Us at least questioning the contained violence, there are the Grand theft auto, God of War, call of duty that are essentially just about "MORE DAKKA! WAAGH!!11!!"


There's also Goblin Slayer that was a huge hit in fantasy anime and will get a season 2