Green Bird Rpgs 🏳️‍🌈

Sportsmanship in D&D In D&D, we have an unwritten set of rules around table etiquette—such as not hogging the spotlight—but we also have assumptions around ‘balance’. Typically this means that we expect players to not try and exploit mechanics to a point of absurdity (as is often done with 5e ‘healing spirit’ Congo lines), and to work with the DM if they are outshining the party. Likewise, DM’s are often expected to not throw monsters greatly beyond the party’s capabilities at them. However, balance and sportsmanship are both a response to competitive games, and D&D doesn’t quite fit that archetype. I am an advocate of allowing players to get in over their heads, as I think this contributes to verisimilitude and reinforces a more cautionary old school style of play. So what does sportsmanship or balance look like in a semi-cooperative game? I think the general ethic is to ensure that player choices are always driving the action. If the players can’t look back in hindsight and see how their decisions put them in a dangerous situation, then they will begin to blame the gods (which happens to be the DM). Once they’re blaming the gods, they’ll stop believing that there are better and worse decisions they can make in the game, and ‘learned helplessness’ will take root, fomenting apathy. So, it’s the DM’s job to ensure they make players’ choices salient to them, and ensure there are multiple options on the table.

What do you say?

the pearl-clutching about no young white men being published in The New Yorker is so funny like men, writ large, are basically a sub-literate population in the US. men do not read literary fiction. if you have even a passing interaction with publishing you realize this.