Saturday Q&A (mar 30)

Sterling in Maine writes,

When we spoke face-to-face last summer I attempted to express to you my vision that an ideal RPG setting would react to the stimulus of player action like nature reacts to the stimulus of human activity. "Even if that meant the the PCs stepped into gopher holes a peculiarly large number of times in a row," as you may recall. What I meant to convey is that I, as referee (I know that we differ too on that role), wish to give my players the world as it is, even it is anti-climactic or redundant, because that is the world. The world exists as it exists whether or not I like it and whether or not it has dramatic value. The concept has pushed me toward looking at "closed" RPG systems as an ideal.

The group I run has been alternating between my low fantasy 1478, Sengoku-era-like-Ireland AD&D campaign and "Paris that never was" 1607 En Garde! game. It has been for me a fascinating experiment so far in terms both of the behavior of my players and my duties and role as a referee. I think that what I'd ultimately like to achieve is a system as closed as GDW's En Garde! that is simultaneously as open as AD&D. I can vaguely see a path, but it's complex and I'm unsteady. I doubt that this is a path that you are also interested in following, thought I hope it might be, but it is a path I believe I can walk better with your input regardless.

Answer: Perhaps this is a rehash of what I said on your porch, but the short version is that your game world is in danger of reproducing Skyrim. Beautiful, richly elegant, but deadly dull. 27 centuries of evident human linguistic creation, plus probably another 60,000 years of telling hunting stories around a campfire, has demonstrated that humans related to compressed event relation tactics. ASMR content on the internet aside, with streaming videos on twitch showing people asleep in their beds, or cleaning their houses (which is pretty much a solo watching activity, I should think), for nine hours, most of the time people just want a DM who will get to the point. I know I would. Of course, if your players will accept it, that's fine. But are you sure that's how they want it, or is it just that they'll take what they can get? I'd worry it was the latter.

Griffin writes,

I remember that in the past you have advocated for getting up and moving around (#2 here) so I wonder if this is a change over the years, or are they different aspects? Like moving around to see what people are rolling is fine, but stay still when presenting information?

Answer: Yes, that's more or less a good assessment. I do still advocate getting out of one's chair. I try to adopt the motionless stance when I'm standing and running the game. This happens most often when I've gotten up to get a drink or a little food, and I don't need to be at the computer screen because the party isn't in combat. An amusing part of this is, however, that if I have a cup of hot coffee, I'll stand there holding it in my hand, making small jerky motions that make my daughter — who sits nearest the kitchen — nervous about me slopping coffee into her tablet. She tells me, "Get away from me with your gesturing coffee." Which is fair. Holding the coffee like that while running is an absent-minded thing anyway.

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Sorry about the lateness of this post.  I forgot it was Saturday.  How irresponsible of me.

Thank you for your contributions, Sterling and Griffin.  If readers would like to reply to the above, or wish to ask a question or submit observations like those above, please submit  to my email, alexiss1@telus.net.  If you could, please give the region where you're located (state, province, department, county, whatever) as it humanises your comment.

Feel free to address material on the authentic wiki, my books or any subject related to dungeons & dragons.  I encourage you to initiate subject material of your own, and to address your comment to others writing in this space.    

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