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Whybird posted:You know, in all the times I've seen this discussion play out, I've never once seen a convincing argument for why having an enemy force that you can kill at will without having to talk to them first makes a game more interesting, not less. I don't think it ever makes the game more interesting, but it's basically required if what you're actually shooting for is adolescent power fantasy. Calling too much attention to what's actually happening would make that impossible.
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May 15, 2021 15:38
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CitizenKeen posted:Is this Rowan Rook and Decard Unbound? That's the one.
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May 15, 2021 15:43
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EverettLO posted:I don't think it ever makes the game more interesting, but it's basically required if what you're actually shooting for is adolescent power fantasy. Calling too much attention to what's actually happening would make that impossible. Only a completely un-examined and maximally problematic one. Lots of beloved properties aimed at adolescents and with significant power fantasy appeal have a reluctance or unwillingness to kill as a key signifier of heroism - Batman, ATLA’s Aang, Young Wizards just to name a few that spring immediately to mind.
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May 15, 2021 15:50
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Ultiville posted:Only a completely un-examined and maximally problematic one. I have to believe that people arguing against realistic motivation in their enemies have games that fit this description to a T.
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May 15, 2021 16:00
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Whybird posted:You know, in all the times I've seen this discussion play out, I've never once seen a convincing argument for why having an enemy force that you can kill at will without having to talk to them first makes a game more interesting, not less. D&D is ultimately a squad-scale fantasy wargame. Nearly all of its rules are for killing things. Clouding the appropriate to use those rules wastes the group's session time. Everything in the game world exists to kill or guide players toward something else to kill. You can obviously do other things than combat in D&D, but that often involves ignoring huge swaths of it.
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May 15, 2021 16:21
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Whybird posted:You know, in all the times I've seen this discussion play out, I've never once seen a convincing argument for why having an enemy force that you can kill at will without having to talk to them first makes a game more interesting, not less. Because it quickly gets to the combat, which, to most players, is the more interesting bit in most games. You dont have to like that reasoning but I don't think you can refute it.
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May 15, 2021 17:23
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Another major issue I see from a lot of people, and especially this thread, is the assumption that someone who doesnt want to contextualize anything is refusing because they think itll make things worse, when the reality is theyre refusing because they cant be assed. If someone responds to all this with "Its fantasy, no one is going out on the street killing people after this," then theres not much to be said. They just dont care, and honestly thats not a condemnation of their character.
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May 15, 2021 17:35
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Halloween Jack posted:This is the thread's favourite topic besides Actual Play podcasts and it is, somehow, even more boring I hate having to agree. It's a topic worth covering but not as the same few statements made over and over. People reading to reply and not to understand.
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May 15, 2021 17:52
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GreenMetalSun posted:I'll be honest, I literally don't see any difference between, 'There's a machine churning out evil clones you can kill on sight' and 'there's an evil pool of goo churning out evil mutants you can kill on sight' and 'Grummush is an evil god who's churning out evil orcs you can kill on sight'. I mean, if the framework is that Gruumsh is literally popping evil orcs into existence, it's still boring and purely serves to provide a number of fights per level without thinking too much about it... but it's better to my eyes than 'they have children and culture like us, they are basically human, except their brain is set to evil on a biological and inheritable level' because that looks much too much like actual genocidal ideologies. Something being flat and boring, but fantastical in a way that makes it less isomorphic to real-world racism, is an improvement. E: To try to move this along somewhat, I think fantasticality matters to this stuff, even if it doesn't change the whole situation. The more weird and unlike actual human ideologies a thing is, the less it's going to feed into existing ideas. This can be taken too far - people act like any degree of the fantastic removes any real-world similarities. But, for an example, Ultraviolet Grasslands is a setting with slavery by default, and also with hive-mind polybodies that take over people as parts of the polybody. The slavery upsets me, because the setting and mechanics just treat humans as a commodity and it's just unpleasantly (pseudo)realistic. 'Pseudo' because there's no engagement with resistance, with escape, with the actual process of treating people as property, they're just an entry in a list. The polybody thing on the other hand is a really interesting, if fundamentally monstrous, practice in the setting, because while it's arguably about as evil as enslaving people, it's completely fantastic. It doesn't carry water for treating this as normal or reasonable, because 'this' doesn't exist in the real world in any form. Fundamentally, mucking around with polybody stuff is safer and less likely to put its foot in it. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 18:36 on May 15, 2021 |
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May 15, 2021 18:31
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Liquid Communism posted:If you have to have something you can just kill, use mindless undead. This is pretty much Crawford's Spears of the Dawn. Well, it's either corrupt people - in the political sense, having to fight against a tribal chief or leader-type and their goons in order to protect some innocents - mythical monsters, or undead. Although the undead were caused by a 'immortality-with-cavets Ponzi scheme' a couple centuries ago, any of the intelligent undead were definitely high enough in the Ponzi scheme that they deserve whatever's coming to them, and maybe you can talk your way out of physical conflict with some of the mythical creatures but otherwise they're the Jenny Greenteeth variety where they just really like eating children and won't be talked out of it. If you ever come across a giant, you could talk your problems out, however. There's a variety of settlements and types of living, from nomadic herders to metropolitan cities, that any number of political corruption can be going on, and if those goons really want to help that guy kick those people off their rightful land, well...
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May 15, 2021 18:33
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Control Volume posted:Another major issue I see from a lot of people, and especially this thread, is the assumption that someone who doesnt want to contextualize anything is refusing because they think itll make things worse, when the reality is theyre refusing because they cant be assed. If someone responds to all this with "Its fantasy, no one is going out on the street killing people after this," then theres not much to be said. They just dont care, and honestly thats not a condemnation of their character. Of course people use things differently, and my suspicion is that most people who really want D&D monsters to kill without thinking about it aren't bad actors - which is part of why people get invested in the discussion in certain ways. That said, on a personal level, I'm a pretty lazy GM, and it's very easy to establish a fight without needing to have literally no dialog or other framing other than "these are orcs." "They rush at you yelling that they'll kill you," or just setting up a situation where hostilities are expected, are both very easy and quick to do and don't require a lot of work. Heck, you could even just be honest that if your characters wander into the lair of some other species intending to kill and loot them, they are not being heroic and moral. It's okay to run games with moral ambiguity, or even where the characters are or begin as villains, if everyone wants that! But it's kind of weird to have games where characters routinely behave poorly but are still cast as heroes. But even more than that, this is the industry thread and we're talking about the expectations set by published products - either the rulebooks and rule systems as established, or the premade adventures that set a tone for what games are going to look like for lots of players. If you're, personally, setting up your own game with "evil races," I'd encourage you to think about not doing that because it's likely to turn people off and you might find yourself with more fun games if you don't, but you're not doing significant social harm (though I won't want you running that game in my space). If a company or author is creating rules and settings that turn into imperialism simulators, especially without being honest about it, that is not a responsible way to behave. Particularly in RPG design, where the players personally engaging with the actions of their characters is the whole thrust of the point. The world would be better if D&D did better. Ultiville fucked around with this message at 18:41 on May 15, 2021 |
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May 15, 2021 18:38
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Ultiville posted:The world would be better if D&D did better. I think were just going to have to fundamentally disagree here then
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May 15, 2021 18:40
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The Blighted (and Anakim, which are really just a type of blighted, blighted's a catch-all term for "Folks who got hosed up by attempts at magical gengineering) aren't really meant to be unproblematic enemies you can kill without worrying about it- there's a giant half page sidebar on players wanting to cure the blight and talking about how it should be hard but possible, but also talking about how they're meant to be a moral dilemma because it's not their fault that aliens or wizards or alien wizards made it hard for them to co-exist with humans so taking it as "They're trying to make enemies that are unproblematic to kill" is exactly the opposite of the design goal. In setting, the Anakim aren't even always evil, the one all-Anakim and blighted faction in the game is a theocratic state with a not-Christian church that preaches mercy and pity for those you feel instinctive disgust and hate for (Humans) just to get around their creator's programming. So it's more "The Outsiders who created them -wanted- them to be orcs and ogres but a significant fraction of them basically went "Yeah, gently caress that." There's an argument to be made that the issue with that sidebar is more the assumption that people with certain kinds of inherited capability issues can be/should be 'cured' of them which is a whole other kettle of fish I don't feel qualified to comment on.
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May 15, 2021 18:51
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Halloween Jack posted:This is the thread's favourite topic besides Actual Play podcasts and it is, somehow, even more boring Just so I’m not misunderstanding you, your position on “D&D’s problems with awful subtext and text, and propagating those problems through the industry and its playerbase via its insurmountable mindshare” is “it can’t ever be fixed so stop annoying me by talking about it”?
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May 16, 2021 03:08
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Parkreiner posted:Just so I’m not misunderstanding you, your position on “D&D’s problems with awful subtext and text, and propagating those problems through the industry and its playerbase via its insurmountable mindshare” is “it can’t ever be fixed so stop annoying me by talking about it”? When was the last time you saw someone bring an actual new argument to the table, or someone admit to their mind getting changed on the topic? That's where it gets draining - it's 100% worth talking about but this thread does not do it in any way even remotely accomplishing that.
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May 16, 2021 03:45
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There's nothing new to be said about certain very specific topics that keep coming up e.g. exactly how ludicrously racist Lovecraft was and how bad Howard was in comparison.
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May 16, 2021 03:46
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there is also literally a thread for discussing the science and philosophy of RPGs and this thread is very muddled on it. This is the business/bad actor/good actor/scandal thread, is it not?
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May 16, 2021 03:54
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:there is also literally a thread for discussing the science and philosophy of RPGs and this thread is very muddled on it. This is the business/bad actor/good actor/scandal thread, is it not? It gets a little muddy, because D&D refusing to remove racism from the game (or doing so very slowly and only in new product) is absolutely in this thread's wheelhouse, but you're right that topics like racism/imperialism/etc. as part of game rules are generally a better fit for the Philosophy thread normally. I dunno, it's all context dependent.
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May 16, 2021 04:08
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Ultiville posted:Only a completely un-examined and maximally problematic one. Lots of beloved properties aimed at adolescents and with significant power fantasy appeal have a reluctance or unwillingness to kill as a key signifier of heroism - Batman, ATLA’s Aang, Young Wizards just to name a few that spring immediately to mind. The first two, of course, also sidestep the issue constantly by portraying it as perfectly fine with absolutely no long-term consequences to beat someone into a pulp, so long as you don't actually use edged weapons in the process. Batman games in particular take it to the point of absurdity by explicitly treating "leaving a guy beaten unconscious with two broken limbs outside in the winter" as nonlethal incapacitation.
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May 16, 2021 04:49
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I liked talking about morality and portrayals of nonhuman cultures from the perspective of how other genres, settings, and mediums approach it, because honestly I think a lot of films, TV, and literature have had more time or breathing room or whatever to move past one specific series of conventions that are anchored to tabletop RPGs due to the pervasiveness of D&D. It's useful to consider how other writers and creatives have addressed the same problems and how they could be applied to games. It seems relevant enough in a practical sense to be talked about here in terms of how the industry could make use of it, unless someone's got a hot new sex scandal or incoherent twitter thread they'd like to dish on?
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May 16, 2021 05:07
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Nuns with Guns posted:I liked talking about morality and portrayals of nonhuman cultures from the perspective of how other genres, settings, and mediums approach it, because honestly I think a lot of films, TV, and literature have had more time or breathing room or whatever to move past one specific series of conventions that are anchored to tabletop RPGs due to the pervasiveness of D&D. It's useful to consider how other writers and creatives have addressed the same problems and how they could be applied to games. It seems relevant enough in a practical sense to be talked about here in terms of how the industry could make use of it, unless someone's got a hot new sex scandal or incoherent twitter thread they'd like to dish on? You could combine both of those, Ed Greenwood posted a literal tentacle sex limerick to Twitter recently.
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May 16, 2021 05:17
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Arivia posted:You could combine both of those, Ed Greenwood posted a literal tentacle sex limerick to Twitter recently. Huh, was that why twitter finally had a Discourse about him? Or did he coincidentally decide the time had finally come to flex his uh... appendages?
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May 16, 2021 06:03
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RPG Twitter freaking out because of a vague reference to something sexual does sound appropriate but I'm guessing that wasn't it.
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May 16, 2021 06:07
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Control Volume posted:I think were just going to have to fundamentally disagree here then Yeah that... was an almost insane thing to say. D&D isn't ever going to make the world a better place, it's a game. No game will make the world a better place.
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May 16, 2021 07:30
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Arthil posted:Yeah that... was an almost insane thing to say. D&D isn't ever going to make the world a better place, it's a game. No game will make the world a better place. people seem to magically forget that 99.9% of DnD games involve stupid bullshit like "haha i take a poo poo in Strahd's coffin" and "You rolled a natural 20 so you convince the orcs you're also an orc even though you're not and they join you". And this is a good thing. I don't really understand even remotely the purpose of pretending DnD is being played a certain way if you can't prove it? It reminds me when 5e first released and neckbeards were screeching that you couldn't kill 1000 goblins solo as a fighter at level 20. Which made the following assumptions: 1. That a DM would literally field 1000 goblins against a single level 20 player for any reason and play this 100% combat RAW. 2. That this would take place on a massive white void with a solid floor and zero terrain features whatsoever. 3. The fighter would have no magic items whatsoever, nor would he do anything but roll his attacks and then take a bunch of damage again and again until he died. Despite the fact that this would never, ever happen, people did present this as a literal piece of evidence that fighters are bad. My point is the more you wring your hands over a game doing things you're not actually seeing it do, you make yourself miserable thinking about a game that's supposed to be fun, enjoyable and a good time with friends. Regardless of what conclusions you come to, millions of thousands of people are making GBS threads in Strahd's coffin every month and laughing about it over beers.
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May 16, 2021 07:57
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Despite the fact that this would never, ever happen, people did present this as a literal piece of evidence that fighters are bad. Almost as bad as people shouting arms back on 
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May 16, 2021 08:57
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Kavak posted:Almost as bad as people shouting arms back on Another one was a man explaining to his wife in 2008 at my friendly local game store in 2006(? whenever 4e released) about how it was "retarded" because wizards had unlimited casts of certain spells, and since Magic Missile was one of them, AND walls had defined DC and HP, a wizard could now "cheat" in Ravenloft and bore a hole through the side of Strahd's castle(I had no idea what any of this meant, my first game of DnD wasn't for years) by spamming it over and over and go straight to the treasure room. Knowing now what I didn't then, that's such a baffling analysis of...literally any single part of 4th edition dungeons and dragons's rules that I thought it was a hoax, until I started actually playing these games and finding out most nerds in the tabletop sphere just make up whatever bullshit they think will happen and will repeat the conclusions drawn from these scenarios in their head as data to make a quality judgement from.
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May 16, 2021 13:24
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Arthil posted:Yeah that... was an almost insane thing to say. D&D isn't ever going to make the world a better place, it's a game. No game will make the world a better place. D&D is a significant cultural presence and lots of nerds use it as part of their lens to view the world. It’s probably not great that they do, but it’s certainly true. I’m not saying changes to D&D could singlehandedly revolutionize the world or whatever, but if you don’t think the messages portrayed by incredibly popular cultural works are relevant outside those works, I’m equally perplexed by your position.
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May 16, 2021 14:21
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Without dismissing the effect of art on how you think about the world entirely, I would say a far more important and immediate aspect of it is simply "who does the hobby attract, and who feels unwelcome?"
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May 16, 2021 14:26
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Halloween Jack posted:There's nothing new to be said about certain very specific topics that keep coming up e.g. exactly how ludicrously racist Lovecraft was and how bad Howard was in comparison. Well hey if you're looking for something new you can always head to the 5e thread where they're ... talking about how to circumvent Zone of Truth.
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May 16, 2021 17:56
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Without dismissing the effect of art on how you think about the world entirely, I would say a far more important and immediate aspect of it is simply "who does the hobby attract, and who feels unwelcome?" Yeah this is also a great point.
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May 16, 2021 17:58
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For what it's worth, despite all the lets say "baggage" that D&D and WotC has, the player base itself far more wide and welcoming than it's been previously. You run into some weird like parasocial nonsense from time to time if you cross paths with fans of popular AP's and podcasts(but that's online interactions and "fandom" in general nowadays). But generally it's at least moving in the right direction on the player base front. At least anecdotally online in the number of rando pickup games or long running campaigns I participate in, I can't speak to what it's like going to play games at like a local store or at Cons. Although I really really do wish I could find a game online that isn't 5e to play, where in order to play it I don't need to GM. As I am a poo poo GM Dexo fucked around with this message at 18:25 on May 16, 2021 |
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May 16, 2021 18:22
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Without dismissing the effect of art on how you think about the world entirely, I would say a far more important and immediate aspect of it is simply "who does the hobby attract, and who feels unwelcome?" The inverse is true as well; 5th edition tieflings are explicitly queer-coded, and that coding brought lots of people into the fandom. Things or concepts being problematic are less important than finding themes the audience you want identify with.
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May 16, 2021 18:24
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potatocubed posted:The problem you've got here is that in D&D there are no ways to win a fight other than by killing your opposition (or something as good as killing them, like turning them to stone or whatever). Anything less than that can be recovered from relatively rapidly, especially with clerical magic, and if you're playing an edition with morale rules a failed morale roll generally just means the survivors will disappear into the dungeon and warn everybody else that you're there and/or return with reinforcements. Yes -- that is the problem I am describing, and the thing I think games should not have. In a game where defeated enemies are still a threat, the players are given in-character motivation to commit atrocities... so let's have games where defeated enemies treat the people who chose to spare their lives with respect and honour!
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May 16, 2021 19:15
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Whybird posted:Yes -- that is the problem I am describing, and the thing I think games should not have. In a game where defeated enemies are still a threat, the players are given in-character motivation to commit atrocities... so let's have games where defeated enemies treat the people who chose to spare their lives with respect and honour! "I respect and honor your victory, which is why if you let me go I'll promise to just stand here while you go slaughter or at least pillage the rest of my people" is not going to ring true to a lot of people.
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May 16, 2021 20:03
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theironjef posted:"I respect and honor your victory, which is why if you let me go I'll promise to just stand here while you go slaughter or at least pillage the rest of my people" is not going to ring true to a lot of people. And, of course, the whole medieval Europe hostage-taking "chivalric" tradition was built extensively on being able to squeeze money out of the families of people with fancy armor, while the people taken prisoner didn't care all that much about the lives of the bulk of the peasants being cut down outside of the annoyance it would cause later for taxes.
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May 16, 2021 20:54
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theironjef posted:"I respect and honor your victory, which is why if you let me go I'll promise to just stand here while you go slaughter or at least pillage the rest of my people" is not going to ring true to a lot of people. Personally, what rings untrue to me is "these adventurers have demonstrated they could wipe the floor with me but spared my life. But gently caress it, in exchange for a fleeting tactical advantage I will now encourage them to do the exact opposite when they encounter the rest of my people". But even then, that's assuming that you're running a game in which there is no goal beyond killing orcs and taking their stuff, which is exactly what I was proposing this to avoid.
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May 16, 2021 21:32
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Whybird posted:Yes -- that is the problem I am describing, and the thing I think games should not have. In a game where defeated enemies are still a threat, the players are given in-character motivation to commit atrocities... so let's have games where defeated enemies treat the people who chose to spare their lives with respect and honour! It sounds like the squad needs someone with a crossbow and a bad attitude to stay with the horses. This seems like a great role for a hireling or the guy who couldn't make it this week.
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May 16, 2021 22:25
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Whybird posted:Personally, what rings untrue to me is "these adventurers have demonstrated they could wipe the floor with me but spared my life. But gently caress it, in exchange for a fleeting tactical advantage I will now encourage them to do the exact opposite when they encounter the rest of my people". My White Box party have gotten more than one hireling to join on with them by offering better benefits and protection after the morale rules dictated a surrender. "Hey, do you want to live AND get a half share of dungeon money?" is a pretty good offer. And the one time that the group press ganged a guy into service, only for him to take the money they had given him to buy equipment and disappear, they took it in stride.
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May 17, 2021 14:21
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Lumbermouth posted:And the one time that the group press ganged a guy into service, only for him to take the money they had given him to buy equipment and disappear, they took it in stride. The Isle of Dread tells you to do the same for evil PCs, actually. You wanna enslave the island people? Get ready to catch a knife in the back.
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May 17, 2021 14:48
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