Quote from: Altheus on June 25, 2021, 02:54:22 PM
Basically, reality can be rough, I don't need that too much in a game.

Or play Harnmaster which does this well. 

Quote from: estar on June 25, 2021, 02:21:36 PM
I have long argued that the when it comes to a conflict between the rules and how the setting is described, the setting should prevail and the rules altered to reflect how things work in the setting.

In short if it makes sense that a character can successfully weave a basket out of reeds, the character should be able to weave a basket out of reed regardless what in the system or not.

The problem with "Mother may I" is not a result of players not "getting" the old school way of doing thing. It is because it a result of poor communication skills on the part of the referee, and because starting out not knowing not anything is a niche of niche taste in gaming.

This issue came when I talked about Sandbox Campaigns. There only a few hobbyists that enjoy starting out a campaign in the midst of a blank hex grids. Fewer still that like to do this repeatable. This was true back in the day as well as the present.

Mostly because it rarely made sense once the campaign unfolded. A character is born and in raised in a setting so they would have a certain amount of knowledge starting out. The same with the rules being used. A character has an understanding of how the world works. Players want to be able weigh their choices and then commit to a course of action especially if it is risky. Most I found hate feeling like they might as well tack the map on a wall and throw a dart at it. In short choosing between six blank hexes is not really a choice. The same with choosing what to do as a character that will be resolved by the system.

You don't have to give the player chapter and verse of the entire book. But they need something to provide enough of an initial context to start the campaign going.

The unknown is not based on complete ignorance about things like the name of the nearby town or city, or what type of people the locals are supposed to hate. It's certainly not randomly being placed in an empty hex and being asked which direction you want to go. A good campaign start should lay out a few basics, though a few basics differs massively from what a modern person knows about the modern world.

A campaign world that focuses on exploration still assumes the players mostly have regional knowledge, based on their upbringing. They probably haven't traveled much, and going to a city would be big deal. There is no internet, and probably no atlases (or at least ones they could afford), so their information about places more than a day's travel away is primarily rumors and stories, from travelers, merchants, bards, and occasional visits by important (but probably still regional visitors). It's slanted, exaggerated, and misinterpreted. The information the players are initially given may be sketchy, but which is primarily because players don't want to read long backstories, but it also reduces the amount of work needed from the DM. There should be a continual flow of information and questions along the lines of "would my character know anything about this?" or "your character remembers....". That includes your basket of reeds.

And it's pre-adventuring knowledge. The party doesn't start as experienced adventurers, but as farmhands or apprentices. They know what they know in the realm of their personal experience, and they've heard what they've heard, but by belting on a sword or mace and heading out to seek their fortunes, they are venturing into the unknown of a new experience. They have an immense amount to learn, because growing up in a little village doesn't provide a lot of experience with manticores, big cities, the value of tapestries, or how tactics should change as the party levels up. They have to learn the rules, and the "they" includes both the characters and the players at the same time. It's an organic, iterative process.

You claim it's a failure of communication to provide this upfront, and that's just false, because that's neither the intent, nor is it possible. There are serious bandwidth limits in running an RPG. The DM has to convey the world in words and a few props. And usually a very few words, because lengthy infodumps are rightly derided. For players to acquire that knowledge requires one of two things. The first is pre-existing knowledge, which can come from things like playing in the same setting repeatedly. Or using the same rules, and here I'm referring to both the explicit RAW and implicit rules like table conventions, which typically make up a greater portion of the experience than formal rules. Or even broader tools, like relying on tropes and stereotypes, i.e. making sure the campaign's dwarves don't diverge much from the stereotype. The other option is to acquire knowledge of all of this by the continual procession of assimilation over the campaign. A game focused on exploration leverages this last option by creating a world where the player's lack of knowledge roughly corresponds to their character's lack of knowledge, thus allowing a gradual and synchronous increase in mastery.

I've found players often enjoy this style of play, if they can overcome the tendency to stay with the safe and familiar. It also works well with new players, whether brand new to the hobby, or new to a particular table, because it allows them gradually get up to speed instead of trying (futilely) to front-load everything.