Why do DM's like Dark, gritty worlds and players the opposite?

[Desdichado]

Hobo, you only make your attitude toward D&D and D&Ders more offensive the more you respond to any critique of your attack with put-downs. Dislike for a game on YOUR part is no evidence of "a very close-minded approach to gaming" on OUR part.

It's not offensive just because you say so. The whole attitude of, "well if you don't like the way I play D&D, which I'm going to assume is the only way too play D&D despite tons of evidence to the contrary, then you shouldn't even play D&D at all" coupled with a bunch of condescending, "didn't you see the name of the game? Didn't you know it was a game?" posts hardly make me feel like I need to worry too much about how offended you might feel just because I pointed out that pretending D&D can only be played a certain way is close-minded.

It is close-minded. That's not insulting; that's just descriptive.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Where I come from, explaining something to somebody that he should already know is the height of disrespect. It's called 'condescension'.

As you've only been a member for seven years, perhaps you haven't had time to learn the rules of ENWorld, oh wait, never mind.

If you have an issue with a mod, email him. Responding in thread is not the way to do it. Enjoy your vacation.

 

[Ariosto]

Hobo, YOU wrote, "Because the system and paradigm was not to my taste at all. The arbitrariness, the strange limitations, the lack of focus on things that made the game fun, and the focus on things that made it boring and bizarre; D&D was not the game for me."

 

[The Shaman]

Congratulations for completely missing the point.

We've already covered the Fisher Price My-First-Law-Of-Logic.

And up 'til now I was thinking I might say yes to a second date.

While correlation does not imply causation, as we all seem to agree, some of you are missing the fact that the effect of the correlation itself must have a cause.

That's a circular argument.

Where I come from, explaining something to somebody that he should already know is the height of disrespect. It's called 'condescension'.

The implication being that I'm unaware that correlation does not equal causation and I'm sure you can understand why I took The Shaman's post as unnecessarily antagonistic. Especially since we had covered the point only a handful of posts earlier.

You may feel that you "covered the point earlier," but I disagree with what you posted, so while you may consider it settled, I don't.

 

[The Shaman]

I actually find that most players who roll the Rat Catcher as a starting career are convinced by the dog.

I once had a player roll Rat Catcher and NOBLE. He chose the Rat Catcher, primarily for the dog.

The best part of that little story? When the poor dog died (Chaos Magic) the player's character went ballistic. He charged a (minor) demon, three cultists, and an evil magus and killed ALL of them. His dice did everything but light on fire. I've never seen so many Ulric's Fury rolls in a single combat, before or since. Not to mention that his 40-ish weapon skill didn't miss the entire time...

It's kind of an epic story in our group.

Sweet.

 

[Emirikol]

I actually find that most players who roll the Rat Catcher as a starting career are convinced by the dog.

I once had a player roll Rat Catcher and NOBLE. He chose the Rat Catcher, primarily for the dog.

Good story. In one of my Maptool WFRP games, a guy chose noble and picked up a trained dog..kind of like a rich rat catcher

jh

 

[Ariosto]

A lot of DMs pretty naturally turn to heroic-fantasy fiction for inspiration. As someone observed earlier, "gritty" or even "low powered" has a different bar in D&D (which quickly shoots through "mythic" to "Silver Age Marvel Comics"). Middle Earth is positively grim by that standard, and although the rogues of Nehwon and the Hyborian Age have their jollity they are usually awfully impoverished by D&D standards. The Young Kingdoms are doomed in short order, and the Dying Earth has been doing so for ages in self-conscious cynicism.

Outside of game-based fiction, I don't think a big helping of earthiness and darkness is something that has become outmoded. Even Marvel Comics seem pretty "dark" these days.

Players, though, might be more likely (when reflecting in a game context) to focus on the heroes of novels and not take in the background so much. It might even be that when players think of inspirations for their characters they think of stories that don't have much well-developed background.

Just speculating! What would be current examples of "the opposite" (non-dark, non-gritty) in fiction popular among D&Ders?

 

[The Shaman]

Was I being a dick as a player?

Quite probably.

But, I do not want to screw around with my very, very rare free time trying to do this. I don't like it and now, I just refuse.

If I had a player who did this in a game I'm running, I would ask that player to leave the game.

It's rude to the referee, and it's rude to the other players.

 

[Andor]

A lot of DMs pretty naturally turn to heroic-fantasy fiction for inspiration. As someone observed earlier, "gritty" or even "low powered" has a different bar in D&D (which quickly shoots through "mythic" to "Silver Age Marvel Comics"). Middle Earth is positively grim by that standard, and although the rogues of Nehwon and the Hyborian Age have their jollity they are usually awfully impoverished by D&D standards. The Young Kingdoms are doomed in short order, and the Dying Earth has been doing so for ages in self-conscious cynicism.

Ths is a (I think) a key point. D&D not only expects but in many senses requires the PCs to rapidly become extremely wealthy in order to match the foes they are presented with on a regular basis. It's hard to maintain a hard scrabble atmosphere of dearth and privation when the party could build the Taj Mahal out of pocket change.

It's particularly strange the 4e not only continues this trend but actually ramps up the expected wealth considerably. (Why strange? A: the default PoL setting should not be a get-rich-quick kinda place and B: The system keys so many aspect of magic items off of character level it's nigh bizzare they didn't toss the bonus into that pool and state that magic items run off personal mojo.)

Now there are many possible fixes to this problem, but it is a problem.

 

[The Shaman]

Outside of game-based fiction, I don't think a big helping of earthiness and darkness is something that has become outmoded. Even Marvel Comics seem pretty "dark" these days.

The Captain Alatriste novels are much darker than many of the earlier works in the swashbuckling or cape-and-epee genre, though, significantly in my view, not the The Three Musketeers saga; in fact, I would argue that Perez-Reverte is closer to Dumas than many of the authors in the genre.

Players, though, might be more likely (when reflecting in a game context) to focus on the heroes of novels and not take in the background so much. It might even be that when players think of inspirations for their characters they think of stories that don't have much well-developed background.

I would also guess that some number of players don't consider the background - light, dark, or any shade in between - at all and instead focus solely on what kind of character the rules enable them to create.

Whether this is a few, some, many, or most players I won't hazard a guess.