Killer obstructive DM, nintendo hard games, and shift in gamer culture

[kyoryu]

Interestingly enough, Tomb of Horrors exists because a number of Gary's players told him that the game was too easy.

And he had players solo it, at surprisingly low levels.

[Satinavian]

Interestingly enough, Tomb of Horrors exists because a number of Gary's players told him that the game was too easy.

And he had players solo it, at surprisingly low levels.

Yes, but there might be some element of familiarity with the DM in play. ToH is full of nasty surprises, but if you know what kind of stuff the author typically pulls, it can be significantly easier.

[Quertus]

This thread has been awesome, but too… rich, too big, for me to properly respond to. This little nugget, however, seemed bite-sized:

Personally, a thing I've increasingly felt is that the whole "adversarial competitive challenge" thing in D&D always seemed kind of a weird culture-based tack-on born from con modules that didn't work. Because an RPG with a DM role and player roles, that are separate, and with the responsibilities each side has in a classic D&D system, is, by its very nature, kind of, well, bad at the whole "competitive challenge" business.

No, seriously!

Like, at every point in a D&D game, you are doing things because the DM wants you to do them. If the DM wanted you to not do a thing, he could absolutely stop you from doing it - he has absolute power to set the scenarios you run into, and your only real power is to get up and leave if the disagreement is hard enough. He can tell himself he's being "fair", and "objective", but no such thing as an objective human exists, just one who is not aware of his biases and the way they influence their rules. So the idea of "challenge" based conflict just doesn't work in a game where one of the sides is only limited by their sense of fair play and their own thoughts on what a "reasonable" and "logical" fantasy world looks like (which, importantly, does not at any point need to line up with the players' thoughts). As a DM of... christ, nearly seventeen years now, I quickly realized that most of the "clever gotchas" that some modules wanted the DM to feel smug about were just... basically a teacher failing a student for not reading his mind when answering the questions. "I have all the power, all the information, and decide all consequences. Your job is to guess what I (or the module writer, if I'm using a module verbatim) would think is a reasonable way to solve a problem."

OK, serious question here: if you are concerned about giving power to the GM limiting the game to the GM's sense of fair play, and running a module verbatim as the same, then what do you see as better?

Because here's what I see:

Running RAW / by the book, you are limited to what the game designers considered "realistic", but it's all published, and you can buy in by reading the rules before playing the game.

Running by published module is one step worse than by RAW, because it's just like running by RAW (or would be, if most module writers weren't terrible, and the quality their rules were anywhere near as good as those of the base system, rather than conflicting with the base system as bad as most novelists), except that, in theory, the players haven't read the module to buy in to the author's worldview. (If he has played with the group before, the GM can read the module, and use Knowledge: Players to attempt to ascertain whether or not a given module writer's insanity is anathema to his players or not, allowing "secondhand buy-in").

Running by "what the GM thinks is realistic" is then a step worse than that, as their rules aren't published at all, and requires you to build Knowledge: GM over the course of gameplay to decide whether you buy in and want to play with them.

Running by "each player carries their own reality with them, and is empowered to adjudicate all rules" simply takes the above issues, and multiplies them exponentially. So, if there was only a 10% chance of finding a sane GM (a high estimate, I know), the odds of a random group of 6 players only containing sane members falls to one in a million odds! That seems about the worst possible solution here.

So, from where I sit, a game where the GM creates the *scenarios*, but the *rules* adjudicate them (and the GM had no special powers with regards to rules interpretation) seems optimal.

What do you see?

[Aotrs Commander]

My personal take on DCs (etc) and the rules providing with same as opposed to me making them up is purely mercenary. Why should I pay you, the ruler writer, money for something I'm have to do myself? If I'm arbitarily setting the difficulty on a case-by-case all the time (as opposed to just when I feel the baseline difficulty needs adjusting to circumstances), I can do that with frickin' HeroQuest (and have). I have the drive to write my own rules (and certainly to modify everyone else's without any hesitation and at extensive length if it takes my fancy (and it always does)); so you as rules-writer actually need to provide me with some structure to work from, else I'll just write my own or find another system that does.

(That's the price of having Bleakbane as DM; There Will Be Structure. I am not a DM for people that want an open-world/free form game and I freely admit that. What you get as Bleakbane as DM a stupid amount of prep-work put in on the mechanical (both in and out of universe), which is a double-edged sowrd for some people.)

(Aside from the usual of stealing some of it's ideas (as seen on some D&D pocasts/streams) - and I even did that with 4E - I have not given 5E a sideways glance.)

[Willie the Duck]

Personally, a thing I've increasingly felt is that the whole "adversarial competitive challenge" thing in D&D always seemed kind of a weird culture-based tack-on born from con modules that didn't work. Because an RPG with a DM role and player roles, that are separate, and with the responsibilities each side has in a classic D&D system, is, by its very nature, kind of, well, bad at the whole "competitive challenge" business.

The con modules are definitely part of how the mystique of the adversarial DM-player relationship was born. There are definitely other things in the early rules that speak to the same mindset (thieves listen at doors so of course there are ear seekers, many cursed items which are 'kill your character. no resurrection' for no real reason ). The people around Gary at the time say that much of that is material spawned from a kind of good natured competition between Gary and his son Ernie and friend/collaborator Rob Kuntz, and were adversarial in a 'hah, gotcha this time!' kind of way rather than a hostile fashion. Not that that does anyone outside of Gary's inner circle any good.

Like, at every point in a D&D game, you are doing things because the DM wants you to do them. If the DM wanted you to not do a thing, he could absolutely stop you from doing it - he has absolute power to set the scenarios you run into, and your only real power is to get up and leave if the disagreement is hard enough. He can tell himself he's being "fair", and "objective", but no such thing as an objective human exists, just one who is not aware of his biases and the way they influence their rules.

Here is something I have noticed: Every D&D character is doing something utterly foolhardy. Even those not going into funhouse trap caverns full of creatures trying to kill them are usually doing something incredibly reckless that should not work ('I, an armed mercenary with powers dangerous enough to cause serious problems for them, am going to travel to a local lord and try to convince them to let me wander freely through their fiefdom to accomplish my goals. This should have had a 90% chance of me ending up chained up in a dungeon the first time, yet I've done it multiple times.'). On some level, players are taking cues from the DM as to this objectively insane idea is one you are supposed to just accept because if you don't the gaming session is over, while this other objectively insane idea is one upon which I the DM will judge your success or failure. It always comes down to understanding (hopefully a shared understanding) of where the agreed-upon breaks from common sense are, and where the 'oops, should have assumed that would be trapped' places are. This is especially true with in-game mysteries -- and I have seen a number of DMs who thought they were good at setting up fair-but-challenging mysteries and were very, very wrong (in either direction).

As a DM of... christ, nearly seventeen years now, I quickly realized that most of the "clever gotchas" that some modules wanted the DM to feel smug about were just... basically a teacher failing a student for not reading his mind when answering the questions. "I have all the power, all the information, and decide all consequences. Your job is to guess what I (or the module writer, if I'm using a module verbatim) would think is a reasonable way to solve a problem."

Just as a general rule, appeals to feeling smug are kind of the ruinous dross of our subculture. I have yet to meet the apex gamer that really should feel head and shoulders above their peers, nor am I convinced that there are slavering hordes of other gamers out there that are so clearly subpar (although of course we have all run into someone or another who hasn't been showing their best self at a given moment). It's vaguely amazing that, for all the stereotypes of 'nerds' having been picked on by others in high school, we are so good at being awful towards each other.

Interestingly enough, Tomb of Horrors exists because a number of Gary's players told him that the game was too easy.
And he had players solo it, at surprisingly low levels.

Well of course. It is the classic 'think like the DM, and you will win' dungeon. Also given that most of the traps are lethal (and this is before thief class was published, so you weren't finding the traps by having a good percentage), level didn't matter much.

[kyoryu]

Yes, but there might be some element of familiarity with the DM in play. ToH is full of nasty surprises, but if you know what kind of stuff the author typically pulls, it can be significantly easier.

Well of course. It is the classic 'think like the DM, and you will win' dungeon. Also given that most of the traps are lethal (and this is before thief class was published, so you weren't finding the traps by having a good percentage), level didn't matter much.

Yes to both of these. The point wasn't "and therefore it's a fine dungeon!" It was more, "in the context, it wasn't really set up to be adversarial or a killer dungeon, even if it appears that way to people outside of that context."

The "killer-DM-ness" of Gary is overstated by people that weren't immersed in that culture. It's not necessary to D&D at all.

The con modules are definitely part of how the mystique of the adversarial DM-player relationship was born. There are definitely other things in the early rules that speak to the same mindset (thieves listen at doors, so of course there are ear seekers; many cursed items which are, 'kill your character, no resurrection' for no real reason; ). The people around Gary at the time say that much of that is material spawned from a kind of good natured competition between Gary and his son Ernie and friend/collaborator Rob Kuntz, and not were adversarial in a 'hah, gotcha this time!' kind of way rather than a hostile fashion. Not that that does anyone outside of Gary's inner circle any good.

Sure, and a lot of it spawned because of the way that Gary played D&D - an open table, where random people would come each session, go down into a dungeon, and come back up. That's what D&D evolved around.

Lethality meant something different too. Losing a character in a typical "modern" D&D game is like deleting your Skyrim save file. At Gary's table, it was more akin to losing a solidier in X-Com. Sure, it still stings, but it's a whole different context. The problem is that's not how most people play now, and that's not even how a lot of people played back then.

But con games were totally different, were meant to be something different, and didn't reflect the primary play style that the game was designed around. But because TSR needed to publish stuff, that's what got published, and so that became the template.

Here is something I have noticed: Every D&D character is doing something utterly foolhardy. Even those not going into funhouse trap caverns full of creatures trying to kill them are usually doing something incredibly reckless that should not work ('I, an armed mercenary with powers dangerous enough to cause serious problems for them, am going to travel to a local lord and try to convince them to let me wander freely through their fiefdom to accomplish my goals. This should have had a 90% chance of me ending up chained up in a dungeon the first time, yet I've done it multiple times.'). On some level, players are taking cues from the DM as to this objectively insane idea is one you are supposed to just accept because if you don't the gaming session is over, while this other objectively insane idea is one upon which I the DM will judge your success or failure. It always comes down to understanding (hopefully a shared understanding) of where the agreed-upon breaks from common sense are, and where the 'oops, should have assumed that would be trapped' places are. This is especially true with in-game mysteries -- and I have seen a number of DMs who thought they were good at setting up fair-but-challenging mysteries and were very, very wrong (in either direction).

In a lot of cases that's just because the setup isn't the point, the action is. Especially in more linear games, where the job of the GM includes "set up a series of encounters that are fair", by social contract the players are supposed to presume the encounters are fair, and not try to engage in too much risk management involving them. Of course, that also tends to go haywire for players that don't expect that particular implicit social contract :)

Just as a general rule, appeals to feeling smug are kind of the ruinous dross of our subculture. I have yet to meet the apex gamer that really should feel head and shoulders above their peers, nor am I convinced that there are slavering hordes of other gamers out there that are so clearly subpar (although of course we have all run into someone or another who hasn't been showing their best self at a given moment). It's vaguely amazing that, for all the stereotypes of 'nerds' having been picked on by others in high school, we are so good at being awful towards each other.

It's weird that of all the hobbies I am or have been involved in, roleplaying games, one of the most social of those hobbies, has the highest percentage of people with poor social skills - by far.

[EggKookoo]

It's weird that of all the hobbies I am or have been involved in, roleplaying games, one of the most social of those hobbies, has the highest percentage of people with poor social skills - by far.

There's probably a connection. I'd bet you'll find plenty of poor social skill people among fishermen, scale model builders, and stamp collectors. But their hobbies don't force them to engage with other hobbyists socially in order to function. TTRPGs require you to flex your social-interaction muscles to participate. It's not surprising how it puts a spotlight on the underdeveloped.

On the other hand, physical sports probably also have a large contingent of the socially inept, but the hobby/sport depends less on that and more on physical performance, so it's hidden more. And we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking poor sportsmanship isn't a systemic issue there.

[kyoryu]

There's probably a connection. I'd bet you'll find plenty of poor social skill people among fishermen, scale model builders, and stamp collectors. But their hobbies don't force them to engage with other hobbyists socially in order to function. TTRPGs require you to flex your social-interaction muscles to participate. It's not surprising how it puts a spotlight on the underdeveloped.

On the other hand, physical sports probably also have a large contingent of the socially inept, but the hobby/sport depends less on that and more on physical performance, so it's hidden more. And we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking poor sportsmanship isn't a systemic issue there.

I dunno, I played rec league hockey for years.

And, yeah, we had some folks that were just jackasses. But the percentage was pretty damn low. And there's a lot of social interaction in team sports - I mean, the whole point is that you're working together as a team.

I get the general "jocks are bad" bias in RPG circles - I've been on the receiving end of the reason a lot of that exists - but in this case that hasn't really matched my experience, at least with adults.

I'm just saying, in my experience and based on my sample pool, if you told me I had to go to dinner with a random person from the local RPG groups, or a random person from a local hockey rec league... I'd go with the hockey guy. Way better percentages.

(To be clear, also not saying that there aren't amazing people in the RPG hobby - there clearly are - or that there aren't jerks in other hobbies - there clearly are)

OK, serious question here: if you are concerned about giving power to the GM limiting the game to the GM's sense of fair play, and running a module verbatim as the same, then what do you see as better?

I think the answer is "don't look at roleplaying games as competitive or adversarial setups between the GM and the players."

I mean, look at Drascin's original statement:

Personally, a thing I've increasingly felt is that the whole "adversarial competitive challenge" thing in D&D always seemed kind of a weird culture-based tack-on born from con modules that didn't work. Because an RPG with a DM role and player roles, that are separate, and with the responsibilities each side has in a classic D&D system, is, by its very nature, kind of, well, bad at the whole "competitive challenge" business.

If the GM and players are not in a competitive, adversarial relationship, the power imbalance doesn't really matter.

[EggKookoo]

I get the general "jocks are bad" bias in RPG circles - I've been on the receiving end of the reason a lot of that exists - but in this case that hasn't really matched my experience, at least with adults.

Just for the record, I'm not in the "jocks are bad" camp. More the "jocks are human" one.

[kyoryu]

Just for the record, I'm not in the "jocks are bad" camp. More the "jocks are human" one.

Which they indeed are. High school jocks have a situation that’s fairly tailored to encourage ****ty behavior. I’m also more looking at adult behavior, so might be looking at a pretty different set.

Sorry if I misapplied that brush.

[EggKookoo]

Which they indeed are. High school jocks have a situation that’s fairly tailored to encourage ****ty behavior. I’m also more looking at adult behavior, so might be looking at a pretty different set.

And so to try to keep with the topic, I wonder if there's something about the nature of tabletop games that prompts a kind of behavior in its players. Maybe it's the interpretive nature of the rules? Or the way the game encourages a subtle dance between cooperation and competition between the DM and the players? I know some absolute cutthroat board and card game players, but at the same time most such games have stark rules that you do not cross. A game like D&D is more squishy in that regard.

My personal experience is most strife at the table(top rpg arena) comes from players who view it as a board game, where they feel they need to "win" against the other players. But since the rules don't describe a win condition for such, those players are frequently feeling around the edges for something that feels like it can be used to improve their status. Honestly I think that's a big part of jerk DMs, who know they can't just sledgehammer their way to being "better" than the players, but look for ways to legitimize such as part of their authoritarian role.

For me, as a player, I remember the first time a DM was actually happy for me when I got a good roll against one of his monsters (this would have been late 80s, early 90s). I was blown away, and it was the first time I felt like I could actually run a game myself.

Sorry if I misapplied that brush.

Nope, you didn't. I just wanted to clarify.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

And so to try to keep with the topic, I wonder if there's something about the nature of tabletop games that prompts a kind of behavior in its players. Maybe it's the interpretive nature of the rules? Or the way the game encourages a subtle dance between cooperation and competition between the DM and the players? I know some absolute cutthroat board and card game players, but at the same time most such games have stark rules that you do not cross. A game like D&D is more squishy in that regard.

My hypothesis, in a word? Escapism.

Tabletop RPGs let you get "outside yourself" in a way that sports, board games, and even video game RPGs don't, so the people likely to be attracted to that are likely to be the ones to whom that kind of escapism most appeals: the bullied, the social outcasts, the less socially adroit, and so on. Which isn't at all to say that most RPGers are like that, just that (A) those people aren't attracted to e.g. model railroading or competitive ballroom dance in the way they are to RPGs and (B) they're a noticeable enough fraction of the playerbase that most players will tend to run into one or more of them in their gaming career in a way that doesn't hold for e.g. running into lots of overly-aggressive jerks in hockey or showboating divas in skiing or something.

Because of that, winning and losing and freedom of choice and so on become much more personal than they do in a board game or football game (if your character dies in a board game it's because the token you happened to pick this game fell afoul of a game-generated challenge and there wasn't anything within the limited ruleset you could do about it, if your character dies in an RPG it's because the character you created and invested so much in fell afoul of a challenge created and run by the DM and it was your lack of creativity/bad tactics/etc. that's at fault, or so it can easily feel) so people may be impelled go to greater lengths to prove themselves somehow, on both sides of the screen.

My personal experience is most strife at the table(top rpg arena) comes from players who view it as a board game, where they feel they need to "win" against the other players. But since the rules don't describe a win condition for such, those players are frequently feeling around the edges for something that feels like it can be used to improve their status. Honestly I think that's a big part of jerk DMs, who know they can't just sledgehammer their way to being "better" than the players, but look for ways to legitimize such as part of their authoritarian role.

Very much agreed. I've been fortunate enough to never run into any bad players or DMs in the many gaming groups I've been a part of, but a good friend of mine lives in a small town where gaming is scarce, and for a long time his group was essentially stuck with one especially awful DM because she was the only person willing to DM, confident in their DMing skills, and able to host the group somewhere. I almost thought all the terribly stories about her were jokes or hyperbole until I had the distinct displeasure of meeting her for myself.

Said DM was definitely of the "attracted to escapism" sort described above, and her constant attempts to "beat" the players likely (my friend has hypothesized) derived from the fact that whenever the group got together for board games or Magic or Smash Bros or whatever she was pretty terrible at those other games, so she tried to make up for it and be "good at gaming" by killing PCs in RPGs.

[kyoryu]

And so to try to keep with the topic, I wonder if there's something about the nature of tabletop games that prompts a kind of behavior in its players. Maybe it's the interpretive nature of the rules? Or the way the game encourages a subtle dance between cooperation and competition between the DM and the players? I know some absolute cutthroat board and card game players, but at the same time most such games have stark rules that you do not cross. A game like D&D is more squishy in that regard.

I think it's the power fantasy, combined with the fact that in a lot of RPGs, you just don't lose. Even games that claim to be super hardcore you'll die all the time really have an actual loss ratio of like 1:20 or worse. A lot try to make up for this by claiming that IF YOU FAIL YOU'LL BE SO DEAD OMG but if you're only "losing" one in twenty or more encounters, you're still basically winning all the time.

In a sport or non-cooperative game, if you win 95% of the time it's time to play against better people.

So I think RPGs attract a particular variety of person that finds high value in those things. And I think those people can often be toxic. Of course, those aren't the only people that get attracted to RPGs, but I think it feeds into why there's a higher percentage of maladjusted people.

Similarly, in hockey, there's some people that just want to knock people down. Between penalties and teams not wanting them, those people usually don't stick around that long. There's other reasons people play hockey too, that have nothing to do with that.

[Knaight]

So I think RPGs attract a particular variety of person that finds high value in those things. And I think those people can often be toxic. Of course, those aren't the only people that get attracted to RPGs, but I think it feeds into why there's a higher percentage of maladjusted people.

Similarly, in hockey, there's some people that just want to knock people down. Between penalties and teams not wanting them, those people usually don't stick around that long. There's other reasons people play hockey too, that have nothing to do with that.

Bolding mine. I've had a very different experience with the local community, which isn't surprising given that there's probably both a location and generational gap, along with a real possibility of different games attracting different people. The people who view RPGs as a conventional game they win all the time probably exist, but I've never met any - and there's heavy overlap with boardgamers, who often play games where the expected win rate is in the 1/5 to 1/3 range (3-5 players being a common table size).

I suspect a lot of it comes down to a generational shift around ostracism and inclusion in nerd circles. Sufficiently maladjusted people are substantially more likely to be screened out or removed, because the whole idea that ostracism for behavior is inherently morally wrong has largely faded, or at least condensed into deeply dysfunctional and isolated subgroups that are largely unwelcome in the broader community.

I've heard horror stories from elsewhere and especially elsewhen, along with stories about (and limited experiences with) brushing up against toxic elements in the gap between them showing up and being shown the door. They've just been so few and far between that I'd be no more wary about bumping up against the jackasses if I had to go eat dinner with some rando than in something like a recreational hockey league counter example. I'm pretty sure it eventually comes down to community self policing.

[Cluedrew]

My personal experience is most strife at the table(top rpg arena) comes from players who view it as a board game, where they feel they need to "win" against the other players.

My hypothesis, in a word? Escapism.

Sound pretty reasonable. Actually if we stretch escapism a bit it covers a lot of the common problems. People who think their "chaotic neutral" antics are hilarious. Those who want some power in a group and try to get it by being a GM. Those who want to be the biggest and baddest PC in town.

For me the biggest problems come from people who just don't think about the game; their effect on other players or can't really consider what is happening in fiction. Some mean well so it is more of a particular inability than a motivation and so it might not be quite what we are looking for here.

I'm in the storytelling camp personally, everyone is supposed to put in effort and also look for opportunities to make other people's character's look good. Not constantly but when the chance comes up.

[Quertus]

I think the answer is "don't look at roleplaying games as competitive or adversarial setups between the GM and the players."

I mean, look at Drascin's original statement:



If the GM and players are not in a competitive, adversarial relationship, the power imbalance doesn't really matter.

So… it's complicated.

Some people view "the GM creates and runs the challenges" as an inherently adversarial relationship; others, myself included, do not.

IMO, that initial statement actually muddies the waters, as it seems open to inference of the former position, without explicitly stating either way.

So, in addition to the questions I asked, it also matters what they mean by a competitive, adversarial relationship.

But, yeah, still trying to figure out exactly what they think that the problem & solution look like.

And so to try to keep with the topic, I wonder if there's something about the nature of tabletop games that prompts a kind of behavior in its players. Maybe it's the interpretive nature of the rules? Or the way the game encourages a subtle dance between cooperation and competition between the DM and the players? I know some absolute cutthroat board and card game players, but at the same time most such games have stark rules that you do not cross. A game like D&D is more squishy in that regard.

My personal experience is most strife at the table(top rpg arena) comes from players who view it as a board game, where they feel they need to "win" against the other players. But since the rules don't describe a win condition for such, those players are frequently feeling around the edges for something that feels like it can be used to improve their status. Honestly I think that's a big part of jerk DMs, who know they can't just sledgehammer their way to being "better" than the players, but look for ways to legitimize such as part of their authoritarian role.

For me, as a player, I remember the first time a DM was actually happy for me when I got a good roll against one of his monsters (this would have been late 80s, early 90s). I was blown away, and it was the first time I felt like I could actually run a game myself.

I mean, there's lots of little triggers, which differ for individual players. Some are fine so long as they aren't playing "evil"; others are fine so long as they aren't playing "priests"; etc. Which is why I definitely stand in the side of, "rules can fix bad behaviors" rather than "bad players will always be bad".

IME, the biggest trigger on the *player* side of the screen is running inherently problematic, antagonistic classes: Paladin (no evil), Barbarian (1e - no Wizards), or Kinder (@#$$_&&&$#@#$__$), for example.

I do like what I read your idea to be / what I extrapolate from your idea, that so many of the social rules around RPGs are soft, unspoken, and vary from table to table. I think that that certainly can contribute.

[NigelWalmsley]

And he had players solo it, at surprisingly low levels.

That's because Tomb of Horrors isn't hard in any interesting way. It's just a series of arbitrary death traps where there is no reasonable way to determine the right answer and guessing wrong kills you. Soloing the Tomb of Horrors is like getting heads on fifty consecutive coin flips. It's unusual, and it's kind of a novel story to tell your friends, but it doesn't reflect any particular skill on your part.

[Telok]

"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

[NorthernPhoenix]

"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

No, or at least not in the way you're joking about. As the thread title wants to discuss, people are a product of their culture, both broadly and in this case of the subculture they take part in. One of the most important thing a TRPG ruleset must do is inform and guide the intended table culture for the game. The problems described in some parts of this thread occur when there is a incompatibility between player and culture.

[Democratus]

No, or at least not in the way you're joking about. As the thread title wants to discuss, people are a product of their culture, both broadly and in this case of the subculture they take part in. One of the most important thing a TRPG ruleset must do is inform and guide the intended table culture for the game. The problems described in some parts of this thread occur when there is a incompatibility between player and culture.

Cultures are made by people. So it does, ultimately, roll back to "people are a problem". Which was Douglas Adams' point.

[NorthernPhoenix]

Cultures are made by people. So it does, ultimately, roll back to "people are a problem". Which was Douglas Adams' point.

Right, but they don't spring out of every individual independently. They are a product of external influences. In this case of TRPGs at least, how people are taught and influenced to act by others (media, books and so on being a key "others") is more important unless you subscribe to a decidedly pessimistic view of human nature.

[Bohandas]

Interestingly enough, Tomb of Horrors exists because a number of Gary's players told him that the game was too easy.

And he had players solo it, at surprisingly low levels.

I mean theoretically if they were high level they could bore through the top using magic and/or a large expensive team of hired laborers

[Lucas Yew]

(…)

I mean, there's lots of little triggers, which differ for individual players. Some are fine so long as they aren't playing "evil"; others are fine so long as they aren't playing "priests"; etc. Which is why I definitely stand in the side of, "rules can fix bad behaviors" rather than "bad players will always be bad".

(…)

For the last few years on this board, the more and more I think that you have almost identical views on many aspects of tabletop roleplaying games…….

(…maybe except on about accepting LFQW as is (which I never will), but that's another story and is not to be discussed here)

[Zarrgon]

Like, at every point in a D&D game, you are doing things because the DM wants you to do them. If the DM wanted you to not do a thing, he could absolutely stop you from doing it - he has absolute power to set the scenarios you run into, and your only real power is to get up and leave if the disagreement is hard enough.

The twist here is style and finesse. If your even a just above average DM you know that you can do anything in the game and make it perfect from any and all disagreements. Both in the role playing and in the mechanical rules. And if you are a typical person or player....watching such a DM is magic.

Of course, that is not every DM. A lot of people simply can't do it. Being a DM is a skill: some can do it well, but not everyone. Though a lot of people to watch one of the DMs effortlessly doing 'perfect' game mastering and think "wow, I can do that!". Though, like many skills, most people are wrong: not that they can't ''ever" do it, but they sure can't just sit down and blink and be a great DM.

And this is what people see. The DM wants X, but they simply don't have the skill to make it happen. So they are left with the bad approaches that are the stuff of legends.

Interestingly enough, Tomb of Horrors exists because a number of Gary's players told him that the game was too easy.

Tomb of Horrors is not a typical adventure.

So, from where I sit, a game where the GM creates the *scenarios*, but the *rules* adjudicate them (and the GM had no special powers with regards to rules interpretation) seems optimal.

This sounds optimal....but very incomplete.

A game where the GM creates the *scenarios* and uses the *rules* adjudicate them when possible, but is willing with the full *trust* of the players to interpret, abdicate and create rules and rules as needed, seems optimal.

Sure, and a lot of it spawned because of the way that Gary played D&D - an open table, where random people would come each session, go down into a dungeon, and come back up. That's what D&D evolved around.

Lethality meant something different too. Losing a character in a typical "modern" D&D game is like deleting your Skyrim save file. At Gary's table, it was more akin to losing a solidier in X-Com. Sure, it still stings, but it's a whole different context. The problem is that's not how most people play now, and that's not even how a lot of people played back then.

A lot of players got way too attached to their characters, even from the start of D&D. And a lot of players put way too much into their characters, so the loss is a huge life changing blow to their life and not just a character in a RPG died.

It's weird that of all the hobbies I am or have been involved in, roleplaying games, one of the most social of those hobbies, has the highest percentage of people with poor social skills - by far.

Well, it might be a lot more that RPGs showcase, exacerbate and spotlight poor social skills far more then any other hobby.

And, yeah, we had some folks that were just jackasses. But the percentage was pretty damn low. And there's a lot of social interaction in team sports - I mean, the whole point is that you're working together as a team.

Except the one of the big reasons why many sports are popular is that you don't need social interaction and you don't need to work together as a team.

The jerk jock can be an anti social, aggressive, hostile solo player/anti team player...you know the type who gets the ball/puck/whatever and just goes for a solo goal while giving a huge finger to the team they are not really "on". Of course, it's the nature of sports that when this jerk does score a solo goal, no one will whine and cry that he did "not play as a team" or whatever....they will just cheer that they got the point(s).

[Pex]

A lot of players got way too attached to their characters, even from the start of D&D. And a lot of players put way too much into their characters, so the loss is a huge life changing blow to their life and not just a character in a RPG died.

It's called empathy. Players get attached to their characters the same way people get attached to fictional characters in movies, tv shows, and books. It's part of what makes them entertaining. They care. When a fictional character dies it hurts. It matters, even when it's a guest star character of a 1987 British tv show episode so you use his picture and name as an avatar on a gaming web forum.

Except the one of the big reasons why many sports are popular is that you don't need social interaction and you don't need to work together as a team.

The jerk jock can be an anti social, aggressive, hostile solo player/anti team player...you know the type who gets the ball/puck/whatever and just goes for a solo goal while giving a huge finger to the team they are not really "on". Of course, it's the nature of sports that when this jerk does score a solo goal, no one will whine and cry that he did "not play as a team" or whatever....they will just cheer that they got the point(s).

The fans may or may not care, but the other players on the team do.

[Zarrgon]

And so to try to keep with the topic, I wonder if there's something about the nature of tabletop games that prompts a kind of behavior in its players. Maybe it's the interpretive nature of the rules? Or the way the game encourages a subtle dance between cooperation and competition between the DM and the players? I know some absolute cutthroat board and card game players, but at the same time most such games have stark rules that you do not cross. A game like D&D is more squishy in that regard.

RPGs are quite unique in a lot of ways. More so then a lot of activities RPGs are a very personal and social experience. And even more so a RPG is a channel for all a persons hopes and dreams and everything they are not in real life. It's a huge deal.

The vast majority of sports and other games have nothing close to anything like this. Loose at cards and sucks you can't buy something fancy. Loose at a sport, and you feel sad for a couple seconds. "Loose(that is have anything even slightly negative)" at an RPG and all your hopes and dreams and fantasies are crushed...maybe forever.

Tabletop RPGs let you get "outside yourself" in a way that sports, board games, and even video game RPGs don't, so the people likely to be attracted to that are likely to be the ones to whom that kind of escapism most appeals: the bullied, the social outcasts, the less socially adroit, and so on.

Escapism attracts everyone. No matter who you are your likely not a king or a wizard and you can't say ride a space turtle through a super nova.

if your character dies in an RPG it's because the character you created and invested so much in fell afoul of a challenge created and run by the DM and it was your lack of creativity/bad tactics/etc. that's at fault, or so it can easily feel) so people may be impelled go to greater lengths to prove themselves somehow, on both sides of the screen.

And you see the worst of humanity here. The player wants to "prove" themselves in the eye of another and have witnesses.....but they are not always up to the challenge. And when they fail, they are most likely to blame the DM, and not themselves.

So… it's complicated.

Some people view "the GM creates and runs the challenges" as an inherently adversarial relationship; others, myself included, do not.

The GM, as the hostiles of a game world, is in an inherently adversarial relationship with the characters. Not ever the players. For the players the GM is all about creating and having fun.

Of course, you can see the problem of way to many players "play the game, as themselves" in every way, but most of all mentally. So when the DM orc attacks their character the player sees and feels it's an attack on them personally.

It's called empathy. Players get attached to their characters the same way people get attached to fictional characters in movies, tv shows, and books. It's part of what makes them entertaining. They care. When a fictional character dies it hurts. It matters, even when it's a guest star character of a 1987 British tv show episode so you use his picture and name as an avatar on a gaming web forum.

Though note there is a huge difference between the fan that is sad that a fictional character dies, but can get over it and accept it......and that fan that goes on a crazy rant and vows to never watch/read that show/book ever again and refuses to accept it.

It's not that you don't feel sad, and it's not that you don't honor their memory.....but you don't let it go too far.

And...and...and....your Avatar is Pex, from the 7th Doctor "Paradise Towers".....wow.

[kyoryu]

That's because Tomb of Horrors isn't hard in any interesting way. It's just a series of arbitrary death traps where there is no reasonable way to determine the right answer and guessing wrong kills you. Soloing the Tomb of Horrors is like getting heads on fifty consecutive coin flips. It's unusual, and it's kind of a novel story to tell your friends, but it doesn't reflect any particular skill on your part.

Eh.... I don't think that's true, and stories of people soloing it the first time, successfully, also suggest that it's not true.

It definitely prioritizes a different set of skills, and it's reasonable to say that one of those skills is "knowing how Gary thought".

It also is the extreme of.... I don't want to say "don't trust the GM", but especially in linear adventures there's a necessary attitude of "go along with it, even if it looks dumb, it's there for a reason". ToH is the opposite of that.

Tomb of Horrors is not a typical adventure.

Indeed. It is often held up as the pinnacle of "adversarial DM". And my point is... even in that case, I don't think it was. Looking at it without the built up knowledge of players in that campaign, it can certainly seem that way, but within context I don't think it was.

So, really, I'm arguing that its existence isn't so much an example of "D&D should be adversarial" or even "old D&D was intended to be adversarial" as it is often made out to me.

A lot of players got way too attached to their characters, even from the start of D&D. And a lot of players put way too much into their characters, so the loss is a huge life changing blow to their life and not just a character in a RPG died.

It's understandable. I think "true high lethality" (as in, characters actually die on a regular basis, not "oh we say characters die but they really don't", is best done in a campaign where you have a stable of characters. I think doing that in a game where you're expected to invest heavily in a single character is a bad idea.

Outside of fringe elements, that's why Skyrim doesn't have permadeath. Nethack does, but nethack can be beat in, comparatively, a fraction of the time.

Well, it might be a lot more that RPGs showcase, exacerbate and spotlight poor social skills far more then any other hobby.

Eh, I'm not sure of that. The phenomenon even occurs on message boards.

Except the one of the big reasons why many sports are popular is that you don't need social interaction and you don't need to work together as a team.

The jerk jock can be an anti social, aggressive, hostile solo player/anti team player...you know the type who gets the ball/puck/whatever and just goes for a solo goal while giving a huge finger to the team they are not really "on". Of course, it's the nature of sports that when this jerk does score a solo goal, no one will whine and cry that he did "not play as a team" or whatever....they will just cheer that they got the point(s).

Wow. I dispute this 100% for team sports. I don't know of any team sport where, if you're anywhere near an appropriate level, you're not better of working as a team member.

Maaaaaaybe basketball? But that'd be it, and I'll admit I don't have a lot of knowledge of basketball so I could be off base there. Being a puck hog in hockey is a good way to find yourself needing a team, and no, it doesn't matter if you're "that good" because unless you're simply too good to be on that team (and there's always other leagues at a higher level unless you're in the NHL), being a predicatable puck hog is the worst thing you can do because then the other team knows exactly what to do.

Sorry, I love RPGs. And I love a lot of people in them. But... the percentage of jerks that I've seen (and no, not jsut in my age range, I've played with people between 20 and 60), is much higher than I've seen in any other hobby.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Indeed. It is often held up as the pinnacle of "adversarial DM". And my point is... even in that case, I don't think it was. Looking at it without the built up knowledge of players in that campaign, it can certainly seem that way, but within context I don't think it was.

So, really, I'm arguing that its existence isn't so much an example of "D&D should be adversarial" or even "old D&D was intended to be adversarial" as it is often made out to me.

Precisely. What people are either forgetting or glossing over is that Tomb of Horrors was a convention module--that is, it wasn't designed as something for a DM to buy and run for their home gaming group as a satisfying dungeon crawl in and of itself, but for a bunch of DMs to be handed at a convention, run a bunch of parties through in parallel, and see which one could get the farthest with the most loot before dying horribly.

The reasons it relies heavily on traps, puzzles, and monsters of the "guess what the DM's thinking" variety are that (A) it had to be fairly mechanics-independent because it would be run by DMs with broadly varying system mastery and for players who could bring any characters they wanted to the convention, (B) it was specifically designed as a "hard mode" module to challenge players who thought previous convention dungeons were too easy--or, as Gygax put it, to be "ready for those fans [players] who boasted of having mighty PCs able to best any challenge offered by the AD&D game," and (C) it was a timed event and, even given that AD&D combat tended to run a lot faster than in later editions, making things lean toward "figure it out or die" than combat challenges meant that time management wasn't as much a factor in a group's final score. And even then, DMs weren't supposed to be "adversarial" when running the module, because then they'd be unfairly penalizing that group relative to the others competing; as with all convention games, they were simply supposed to be very strict with rules and rulings to ensure as uniform an experience as possible across all the groups.

Complaining that AD&D encouraged adversarial DMing and then holding up Tomb of Horrors as evidence of that is like complaining that it's only possible to go skiing two weeks out of every four years and never in the same mountains twice in a row because the Winter Olympics exist. Tomb of Horrors was very much unlike the standard game experience at the time, and that was the whole point.

[Zarrgon]

Indeed. It is often held up as the pinnacle of "adversarial DM". And my point is... even in that case, I don't think it was. Looking at it without the built up knowledge of players in that campaign, it can certainly seem that way, but within context I don't think it was.

So, really, I'm arguing that its existence isn't so much an example of "D&D should be adversarial" or even "old D&D was intended to be adversarial" as it is often made out to me.

If you have never played it, Classic Old School Hexcrawl style D&D is something unique. But back in the Ye Old Days, some D&D games were nothing except going room by room through a dungeon, starting at dungeon level 1 and going down (most often) to ten. This is the type of game Tomb of horrors was made for....

It's understandable. I think "true high lethality" (as in, characters actually die on a regular basis, not "oh we say characters die but they really don't", is best done in a campaign where you have a stable of characters. I think doing that in a game where you're expected to invest heavily in a single character is a bad idea.

Really it's more about acceptance and the over attachment. A player can make a character, invest a year of deep, deep, deep role and roll playing into the charterer and still just accept the characters death. They don't like it, and may not be happy: but they will accept it as part of the game.

It's a simple, yet hated and misunderstood thing that many believe: A game has No Value unless there is the possibility of loss. In order to win/succeed you must face loss/failure. No safety net, no save point, to restart, no do over or anything like that. You can play again, but the game you lost(and the character and all the items) is lost forever.

Not everyone likes the above way. Video game players especially demand that they "don't loose too bad" and force the games to be made with safety nets and save points and all the other safe stuff. It's not right or wrong, it's just different view points.

Eh, I'm not sure of that. The phenomenon even occurs on message boards.

Because the internet showcases, exacerbates and spotlights poor social skills far more then any other thing ever. So combine RPGs and the Internet and you have a social apocalypse....

Wow. I dispute this 100% for team sports. I don't know of any team sport where, if you're anywhere near an appropriate level, you're not better of working as a team member.

Maaaaaaybe basketball? But that'd be it, and I'll admit I don't have a lot of knowledge of basketball so I could be off base there. Being a puck hog in hockey is a good way to find yourself needing a team, and no, it doesn't matter if you're "that good" because unless you're simply too good to be on that team (and there's always other leagues at a higher level unless you're in the NHL), being a predicatable puck hog is the worst thing you can do because then the other team knows exactly what to do.

Well, I'm not talking about "better". Sure, if you take a step back team sports work a whole lot better if everyone works...as a team(who would have thought, right?)

And I'm not in anyway saying the jerk jock that is anti social, aggressive, hostile solo player/anti team player is someone you'd want to have on your team. But they do exist, and they very often slip/sneak their way on to teams. And quite often they can hide in a group of jocks. And quite very often they can be just enough fake and charismatic to cover their jerk ways (To your face they would say "Oh sorry best bro teammate I did not see you were open to pass the puck too")

I doubt you can say you have never met a jerk jock or had one on a team you were on....

Sorry, I love RPGs. And I love a lot of people in them. But... the percentage of jerks that I've seen (and no, not jsut in my age range, I've played with people between 20 and 60), is much higher than I've seen in any other hobby.

Well, I can assure you that the percentage of jerks in the world is fairly stable no matter what you do, where you go and what ages people are at the moment.

[Pex]

Though note there is a huge difference between the fan that is sad that a fictional character dies, but can get over it and accept it......and that fan that goes on a crazy rant and vows to never watch/read that show/book ever again and refuses to accept it.

It's not that you don't feel sad, and it's not that you don't honor their memory.....but you don't let it go too far.

And...and...and....your Avatar is Pex, from the 7th Doctor "Paradise Towers".....wow.

I didn't cry over Pex, but I was . . . upset. I liked the guy. It was the worst character death for me on Doctor Who since Adric. Interestingly it would be years later I would read the British fans hated Adric and were happy he met his end. I wouldn't feel so upset over a character death until Cedric Diggory when I literally, and I mean literally, threw the book across the room when I first read it. I needed a break for 5 minutes before I picked up the book again.

Precisely. What people are either forgetting or glossing over is that Tomb of Horrors was a convention module--that is, it wasn't designed as something for a DM to buy and run for their home gaming group as a satisfying dungeon crawl in and of itself, but for a bunch of DMs to be handed at a convention, run a bunch of parties through in parallel, and see which one could get the farthest with the most loot before dying horribly.

The reasons it relies heavily on traps, puzzles, and monsters of the "guess what the DM's thinking" variety are that (A) it had to be fairly mechanics-independent because it would be run by DMs with broadly varying system mastery and for players who could bring any characters they wanted to the convention, (B) it was specifically designed as a "hard mode" module to challenge players who thought previous convention dungeons were too easy--or, as Gygax put it, to be "ready for those fans [players] who boasted of having mighty PCs able to best any challenge offered by the AD&D game," and (C) it was a timed event and, even given that AD&D combat tended to run a lot faster than in later editions, making things lean toward "figure it out or die" than combat challenges meant that time management wasn't as much a factor in a group's final score. And even then, DMs weren't supposed to be "adversarial" when running the module, because then they'd be unfairly penalizing that group relative to the others competing; as with all convention games, they were simply supposed to be very strict with rules and rulings to ensure as uniform an experience as possible across all the groups.

Complaining that AD&D encouraged adversarial DMing and then holding up Tomb of Horrors as evidence of that is like complaining that it's only possible to go skiing two weeks out of every four years and never in the same mountains twice in a row because the Winter Olympics exist. Tomb of Horrors was very much unlike the standard game experience at the time, and that was the whole point.

I can't speak of Tomb of Horrors, but I know 2E encouraged adversarial DMing. The DMG was all about the DM saying no to players. The worst offender for me was in ability score generation. In 2E you needed minimum scores to play classes. The game discouraged the DM to adjust rolled stats, but if you are doing it anyway don't let a player qualify for a special class like paladin or ranger. "If the character already qualifies for a fighter does he really need to be a ranger? Why not play a fighter who always wanted to be a ranger but is allergic to trees. Inspire roleplaying!" That's male bovine feces.