WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".
#dnd #dnd5e #osr #ttrpg

Not sure how much I agree.

Rule Zero is something which is theoretically true, but in practice doesn't work equally well in all situations. Specifically, it's very easy to use it to do whatever you want between campaigns, but it's actually relatively difficult to use it to patch a campaign while it is running and active, and almost impossible to use during a session rather than between sessions.

I have had to do a whole lot of table politicking in the past, and this generally colors my perspective. When I am changing the rules of a game while we're actually playing it that I tend to call for a vote, even though I technically don't have to for Rule Zero. I have several reasons for this. The first and most practical is that players remember the conversation better if they participate in the process. That can definitely be important if you have a problem rule which has to be changed multiple times. That hasn't ever happened to me in the past, but that's usually because players will either complain like the boy who cried wolf or take a stiff upper lip to a rule that's already been changed. Given the problems I've seen with homebrew campaigns, I think there were times we probably should have double-changed rules rather than letting the second iteration stand.

The second and more pragmatic reason is that problem players out themselves if you give them a vote. Good players do sometimes disagree with the GM and sometimes they have good points the GM should consider. But when you are dealing with an old fashioned asshat player, few things turn the rest of the table towards ejecting the problem player quite like them seeing the GM put something up for a vote and said asshat votes against it in bad faith. If this technique for getting a bad player out of a campaign doesn't work, the campaign is officially toast.

More recently I have been in situations where I don't have actively belligerent players, but I can't actually eject players, either. In this instance I still call for a vote so I can ask one of the players who voted with me to take the problem player aside and say, "hey, that was out of line." Typically, problem players become better players after being taken aside like this, which is obviously the best outcome. But at the same time, unrepentantly delinquent players tend to leave of their own accord after they lose two votes and had two different players say they're doing something inappropriate.

I do agree that 100% consensus is moronic, though. When I call for votes, it's a simple majority with the GM voting twice. Not all campaigns are meant for all players. If you've got a majority, but a player dislikes it, they should probably not play that campaign. Whether that means sitting out and waiting for the next campaign or playing the B campaign (my groups tend to have an A, B, and sometimes even a C campaign going on at the same time) or ejecting the player depends on the context and the reason the player is objecting. But at the end of the day I do think it can be perfectly appropriate to alter a campaign if one player objects and has a good point. It's just that the proof of the point being good is usually that it convinces me, the GM, and the rest of the players at the table.

The most insulting piece is that they called this "rule 0" in their text.  "Rule 0" as a term is not something owned by Hasbro, the term comes from the community a couple decades ago, and it does not belong to them and we should be mad that they are wiping their ass with something that is not fucking theirs.  That part makes me mad, the absolute gall of this fucking corporation, taking something from the community and using their stupid fucking megaphone to tell people it means something that it does not.

As far as the practical effects?  I'm not too concerned.  Many D&D forums consist of a large number of normal player and DMs, with a tiny loud contingent of like, "involuntary non-players"- lets call them innops- who have all these opinions about how every game they aren't participating in should be run, but never seem to actually be involved as a player in games run to their liking- and assuredly they don't go and run one themselves according to such a phiilosophy.  The more a system leans into, or coddles these people- either with actual rules, org play policies, or even just rhetoric- the sparser DMs get, first in the places they stomp around in, and later in the actual games.  It's a problem with a little bit of self-regulation, is my point.

I don't think it's anything that complicated or sophisticated.  That's just how they think about the role of the GM.  You can see this same sort of thing in a lot of more narrative games.  We are all making a story together. 

In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book.  They'll do fine.

Quote from: RPGPundit on January 08, 2024, 03:35:15 PM
WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".
#dnd #dnd5e #osr #ttrpg

I'd rather see you do a "To Catch a D&D Predator" using D&D Beyond LFG Forums.  That forum during covid and D&D was popular was a cess pool of posts like:

-Totally new to D&D, 14+, LGBTQ+ mandatory

posts.  There is no way that child rape did not take place due to D&D Beyond's LFG forum.  I kept reporting that shit when I saw it and they did nothing to stop it.

Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2024, 09:33:08 PM
In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book.  They'll do fine.

They sure didn't play OD&D or AD&D by the book, at many tables. 

Quote from: Jam The MF on January 08, 2024, 11:39:31 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2024, 09:33:08 PM
In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book.  They'll do fine.

They sure didn't play OD&D or AD&D by the book, at many tables.

I remember when I first saw people saying that D&D was sexist because of the cap on exceptional strength for female characters.  My response was, "There was a cap?"  I didn't even notice that at the time.

Quote from: yosemitemike on January 09, 2024, 08:36:28 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on January 08, 2024, 11:39:31 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2024, 09:33:08 PM
In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book.  They'll do fine.

They sure didn't play OD&D or AD&D by the book, at many tables.

I remember when I first saw people saying that D&D was sexist because of the cap on exceptional strength for female characters.  My response was, "There was a cap?"  I didn't even notice that at the time.

It was so unlikely to even come up, that I had 1 character with 18 str, and he didn't get near the cap. But it's not about actual fairness or balance, it's just wedge issue #109,234,876. Stick enough wedges into society and it cracks open, then comes Utopia!

Also I can't be the only one who sees the title, and thinks to how MtG basically became a Farmer's Market for child molesters? I remember when the Quartering first became known for outing the staggering array of REGISTERED sex offenders not just playing MtG in tournaments, but officiating! And the WotC response to his messages was cover-up, and banning The Quartering for life.

Quote from: yosemitemike on January 09, 2024, 08:36:28 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on January 08, 2024, 11:39:31 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2024, 09:33:08 PM
In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book.  They'll do fine.

They sure didn't play OD&D or AD&D by the book, at many tables.

I remember when I first saw people saying that D&D was sexist because of the cap on exceptional strength for female characters.  My response was, "There was a cap?"  I didn't even notice that at the time.

The usual storm in a thimble.

I can actually speak with some authority on this as someone who's still doing an ongoing game for kids aged 10-16. It's all going to be determined by the GM and the group itself. Not the book. And even then, kids are smart. I actually started out with a simple B/X clone with these kids and eventually they demanded more complicated mechanics and more combat. I was running Savage Worlds for a bit and now I'm doing Dark Heresy with them. I even roped them into my ongoing 1:1 Real time SWd6 game and they're loving that too.  They want a systems driven sandbox or I wouldn't do it for them. So there's hope there. More hope for Gen Alpha than Gen Z and Millennials to be honest.

As far as I can tell from nearly thirty years of observing online discussions, if you're playing D&D, you're somehow playing it wrong. 

Quote from: RPGPundit on January 08, 2024, 03:35:15 PM
WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".


It's my humble opinion that what they are really doing is grooming them to not be customers. 

Kids like solid and easy to understand rules and structure and can be deeply offended if they feel there's cheating or deception.  They are also pretty sensitive to it and generally far more understanding of the things around them than we give them credit for.

More likely than not, kids are going to see this and go "this sucks" and do something else. 

Quote from: BadApple on January 12, 2024, 04:01:02 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on January 08, 2024, 03:35:15 PM
WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".


It's my humble opinion that what they are really doing is grooming them to not be customers. 

Kids like solid and easy to understand rules and structure and can be deeply offended if they feel there's cheating or deception.  They are also pretty sensitive to it and generally far more understanding of the things around them than we give them credit for.

More likely than not, kids are going to see this and go "this sucks" and do something else.

Yeah, any half-conscious kid from my generation would have immediately realized that a game where you would win no matter what you did sucked. But you know, this generation is literally being trained about "equity" from age 2, so who knows?