Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Would You Rather Maintain Campaign Theme or Win?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9043998" data-attributes="member: 6877472"><p>What you're talking about here are exploits. Performing actions that were never intended to be taken, but are technically allowable (assuming you're playing in a game where you aren't subject to a ban for exploiting shoddily crafted mechanics, lol).</p><p></p><p>And the answer depends on how competitive you are, and how invested you are in playing the way the developer intended. If you're playing Skyrim, and you fall through a floor and find a way into another dungeon, do you explore and poke around, or immediately quit the game and start over? (Assuming you had no way to teleport or otherwise fix the problem- and what if the way to fix the problem is to use console commands? Is that cheating?).</p><p></p><p>If you're playing an FPS and there's an exploit to shoot through a wall, do you refrain? What if other people do it to you? Do you stop playing until the developer does something about it? Or just "play honorably" and suffer?</p><p></p><p>This plays into a very interesting topic of socially enforced rules. In MMO's, especially, the player base often "decides" how the game should be played, and will do whatever they can to enforce it, regardless of developer intent, such as harassment of players who deviate from their expectations.</p><p></p><p>For example, Everquest had this issue where you could attack enemies and get their attention, and they'd chase you to the ends of the game map. Players would gather up large groups of monsters and lead them into supposedly safe places, like towns, to grief other players by having a mob of hostile and deadly foes wander in (this was called "training"). This quickly became a bannable offense. However, due to player demand, a server where NOTHING was a bannable offense was created.</p><p></p><p>A player then decided to test the boundaries of the "no ban" server by training dangerous mobs of monsters- and immediately the players cried foul, to the point that this player got banned on a "no ban" server- why? Because he deviated from social expectation.</p><p></p><p>Another example- the MMO's City of Heroes and City of Villains had you playing, as you might guess, superheroes and supervillains. There were a few zones where you could interact, with the intent of battling each other. But over time, the player base decided to use these zones for socializing with "the other side" rather than fighting.</p><p></p><p>There was a "safe" area of the map where you couldn't be attacked. But one player decided to use his powers to pull villains into the battle and attack them for xp, playing the game as intended. The other players reacted to this violently, even sending the player actual death threats for violating the "social contract".</p><p></p><p>If, in your games, there is an implied social contract, violating it should receive the same reaction. And such things exist "in universe" as well; you stated that psionics were distrusted by NPC's for various reasons. A player decides to go use a psychic spell because it's "the best". He absolutely should suffer the outrage of the rest of society- his action was legal by the rules, but willfully violated a social contract, possibly in and out of game, since all of this was explained to the player in advance.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9043998, member: 6877472"] What you're talking about here are exploits. Performing actions that were never intended to be taken, but are technically allowable (assuming you're playing in a game where you aren't subject to a ban for exploiting shoddily crafted mechanics, lol). And the answer depends on how competitive you are, and how invested you are in playing the way the developer intended. If you're playing Skyrim, and you fall through a floor and find a way into another dungeon, do you explore and poke around, or immediately quit the game and start over? (Assuming you had no way to teleport or otherwise fix the problem- and what if the way to fix the problem is to use console commands? Is that cheating?). If you're playing an FPS and there's an exploit to shoot through a wall, do you refrain? What if other people do it to you? Do you stop playing until the developer does something about it? Or just "play honorably" and suffer? This plays into a very interesting topic of socially enforced rules. In MMO's, especially, the player base often "decides" how the game should be played, and will do whatever they can to enforce it, regardless of developer intent, such as harassment of players who deviate from their expectations. For example, Everquest had this issue where you could attack enemies and get their attention, and they'd chase you to the ends of the game map. Players would gather up large groups of monsters and lead them into supposedly safe places, like towns, to grief other players by having a mob of hostile and deadly foes wander in (this was called "training"). This quickly became a bannable offense. However, due to player demand, a server where NOTHING was a bannable offense was created. A player then decided to test the boundaries of the "no ban" server by training dangerous mobs of monsters- and immediately the players cried foul, to the point that this player got banned on a "no ban" server- why? Because he deviated from social expectation. Another example- the MMO's City of Heroes and City of Villains had you playing, as you might guess, superheroes and supervillains. There were a few zones where you could interact, with the intent of battling each other. But over time, the player base decided to use these zones for socializing with "the other side" rather than fighting. There was a "safe" area of the map where you couldn't be attacked. But one player decided to use his powers to pull villains into the battle and attack them for xp, playing the game as intended. The other players reacted to this violently, even sending the player actual death threats for violating the "social contract". If, in your games, there is an implied social contract, violating it should receive the same reaction. And such things exist "in universe" as well; you stated that psionics were distrusted by NPC's for various reasons. A player decides to go use a psychic spell because it's "the best". He absolutely should suffer the outrage of the rest of society- his action was legal by the rules, but willfully violated a social contract, possibly in and out of game, since all of this was explained to the player in advance. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Would You Rather Maintain Campaign Theme or Win?
Top