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<blockquote data-quote="Obreon" data-source="post: 7210987" data-attributes="member: 6815225">Yes. I agree with basically everything you said <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :-)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" /> In order to play D&amp;D we need a set of conventions about how to translate the words of a bunch of people around a table full of junk food into the actions and experiences of heroes with superpowers in an impossible fantasy world full of monsters. The conventions will vary from group to group because codifying them completely would a) be boring for everyone&nbsp; b) be deeply unfun for everyone who was more comfortable with different conventions and c) make the rule books even more forbidding than they already are ;-)Learning to master the local conventions (many of which are set by the DM) is a form of mastery that should provide its own satisfaction, if done well. Increasing system proficiency is one of the key rewards for playing most complex games. But as you point out, this is a social minefield strewn with dangerous hidden assumptions about language and culture, and it's easy to have it blow up in your face. Fortunately I know most of the people I game with quite well so it isn't usually a huge problem. Were that not the case, I'd have to spell these things out very carefully, get buy-in from the players about them, and make a special effort to be self-aware about my choice of language. Either way, I think it's important for the DM to train the players to understand his particular series of cues by starting obvious/unthreatening and working up to more elaborate/dangerous/obscure versions once the group is clued in to the mechanisms in play. Angry GM has a bunch of good stuff somewhere about doing this that I really like.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Obreon, post: 7210987, member: 6815225"] Yes. I agree with basically everything you said :-) In order to play D&D we need a set of conventions about how to translate the words of a bunch of people around a table full of junk food into the actions and experiences of heroes with superpowers in an impossible fantasy world full of monsters. The conventions will vary from group to group because codifying them completely would a) be boring for everyone b) be deeply unfun for everyone who was more comfortable with different conventions and c) make the rule books even more forbidding than they already are ;-) Learning to master the local conventions (many of which are set by the DM) is a form of mastery that [I]should[/I] provide its own satisfaction, if done well. Increasing system proficiency is one of the key rewards for playing most complex games. But as you point out, this is a social minefield strewn with dangerous hidden assumptions about language and culture, and it's easy to have it blow up in your face. Fortunately I know most of the people I game with quite well so it isn't usually a huge problem. Were that not the case, I'd have to spell these things out very carefully, get buy-in from the players about them, and make a special effort to be self-aware about my choice of language. Either way, I think it's important for the DM to train the players to understand his particular series of cues by starting obvious/unthreatening and working up to more elaborate/dangerous/obscure versions once the group is clued in to the mechanisms in play. Angry GM has a bunch of good stuff somewhere about doing this that I really like. [/QUOTE]

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