Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Then we have a distinction without difference here. The situations you would describe as a railroad are the ones where I would say a railroad becomes a problem.It still wouldn't be a railroad unless a player tried to do something and was told no. The defining feature of a railroad is a player being unable to do something he wants to do for no other reason than the DM doesn't want it to happen.
I’d still call combat “the minimum number of rolls necessary to resolve uncertainty,” it’s just that the mechanics surround combat necessitates more rolls to resolve uncertainty.Whether it's to your taste or not, they exist in D&D. Combat being the major guilty party. Skill challenges being another. Those are set up to require a lot of die rolling to complete the task at hand. General roleplaying between say the DM and a king would not be one of those, even thought here may be the occasional roll for things that are uncertain.
You can’t stop players from making decisions based on the mechanical benefits they’ll get for them. You can shame them for it, you can kick them out of your game for it, but you can’t stop them from doing it. This is why I prefer that the mechanics be set up in such a way as to reduce dissonance between what the character wants and what the player wants.Whereas my preference is that players choose things like lifestyles based on what their character's concept and desires, rather than just "What mechanical goodies can I get out of this."
Player: Well, I was going to pay for the aristocratic lifestyle for my PC who enjoys being a pampered noble and can't stand the squalor of those beneath him, but since I don't know what I will get out of it mechanically, I'm just going to pay for a squalid lifestyle.
That sort of thing doesn't cut it for me as a player or DM. I feel that choices should be made with roleplaying in mind first, and mechanics second.
Eh, I disagree, but we’ve drifted so far from the topic here, I don’t see it really mattering. Suffice it to say, if a significant number of people now desire more hard coded mechanical options, I think that is a valid desire, whether or not 3e and 4e were the reason they realized they wanted such options.You were also challenging how great of a minority or majority it was, so I brought up that in 1e and 2e it was a very small minority, 3e and 4e over regulated it to the point where this wasn't really a problem, and 5e went back to 1e and now you are hearing about it more. That makes the over regulation of 3e and 4e the culprit. They spoiled people by spelling out the mechanics in detail, and when we go back to 5e where players have to think about how they want to spend gold again, people are complaining.
The phenomenon that most things you can spend gold on have no mechanical benefits occurs to all players, whether they consider it to be a problem or not.As for whether it should be treated as a general problem, it's not a general problem unless it generally occurs to those who play the game. Since it still only occurs to a minority, and possibly still a small minority, it's not a general problem.
That’s reasonable. I feel differently, but I have no fundamental objection to this argument.WotC has limited space for new mechanics, and I would rather see that space taken up by new classes, paths, feats, etc. that will be useful to a greater number of people than gold spending mechanics would.
What? When have I said that?Sure. We can talk about it. Offer up solutions, and so on, but you've made it clear that it's not talking about it that you want to do. You've said repeatedly that the only solution you are really interested in is official mechanics in a WotC release,
The solutions offered have consisted of “talk to your DM” and “DM’s guild has some stuff you could use.” Which doesn’t really engage with the issue, but rather attempts to shut down the conversation by sidestepping the issue or shunting it off to someone else to discuss. I would prefer an actual discussion of ways to mechanically incentivize gold spending, not a token “figure it out with your group” or “use third party.”rejecting the solutions offered to you by people in this thread. That sort of limitation on your part is not conducive to a conversation about a problem and how to fix it, so I'm not detracting from anything with my statements.