Timeline for Is homebrew an acceptable answer to a question?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
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| Jun 8, 2015 at 18:08 | history | edited | mxyzplkMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 23 characters in body
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| Nov 22, 2014 at 1:01 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie | The type of question where BtB is going to be expected by voters are things like "How does X work?" Questions where off-book answers will be (are already often) well received are things like, "X is happening, how do I handle that?" Do you see the difference between those? | |
| Nov 21, 2014 at 23:47 | comment | added | BESW | Regardless of generalisations about the wider RPGs community's habits, the Stack Exchange system can't and shouldn't support discussion and speculation about homebrew outside the guidelines presented by Brian above (which is awesomely supportive of tested homebrew, but rightly recognises that most GM improv relies on intimate understanding of the immediate context in which it's implemented, and so we can't help there). Dozens of forums do homebrew speculation well, and the Stack feels no need to duplicate existing function. We're about providing what forums can't do well. | |
| Nov 21, 2014 at 7:45 | comment | added | Nagora | @SevenSidedDie I think it depends on the community. The on-line community is certainly dominated by BtB thinking; I don't believe that's representative of all gamers. People who ask questions on-line are often looking for an objective answer are somewhat self-selecting. What I'm arguing for here is that answers try to be more realistic and present the sort of things that a GM might actually come up with in play at a table. Or at least, be more accepting of that style because otherwise we're setting up expectations in newbies of how games are played which their GMs probably won't fulfil. | |
| Nov 20, 2014 at 21:48 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie | When assumptions about the community are contradicted by community behaviour, the onus is not on the community to conform to that one person's preconceptions. I'm saying we live in bubbles, which we mistake as representative of the whole but are not. Ironically, the other message in my inbox is about this very same issue, but from the opposite view that BtB is the supermajority's default. So, that's illuminating. | |
| Nov 20, 2014 at 21:08 | comment | added | Nagora | @SevenSidedDie True, but I'm talking about the basis of the default assumptions here, not denying the existence of alternatives. I don't find the apparent assumptions realistic or representative of how RPGs are actually played by experienced gamers, nor how they intended to be played on the whole. If there's a GM there's almost always a "rule zero" yet it is widely ignored here, I feel. I think Brian's accepted answer is about as wrong as it could be but it does reflect a general theme of the site. When there is a GM, there are no "lacunae". That's the whole point. | |
| Nov 20, 2014 at 8:58 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie | The world is wide and strange and much larger than we see from the comfort of our familiar rounds. | |
| Nov 20, 2014 at 8:05 | comment | added | Nagora | @SevenSidedDie I find this hard to relate to as I've never seen an experienced GM who didn't make more on-the-spot decisions than they did book-based decisions. Homebrew is the default setting for all the GMs I've ever played with or talked to, so why should the default setting here BtB? Obviously, BtB answers are to some degree more objective but that objectivity is misleading as it's not something that can be applied in actual play very well. To give the BtB answer and not at least mention that the norm is to take that as a baseline rather than the be-all-and-end-all is a distortion, IMO. | |
| Nov 20, 2014 at 1:29 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie | I sympathise, I really do. I lament the "modern" perspective of Rules Uber Alles deeply. But this is why your answers are often poorly received: not every question is properly answerable with homebrew. If someone comes to us confused about how something is supposed to work, answering with homebrew is fundamentally not answering the question. To answer non-BtB you need some connective tissue in the answer between what they're asking and the off-book advice, usually by answering BtB to solve their basic confusion, and only then offering the homebrew/etc. as a superior alternative, explicitly. | |
| Nov 19, 2014 at 22:32 | comment | added | Wibbs | This is all well and good if the homebrew is tried and tested and known to actually solve the problem at hand | |
| Nov 19, 2014 at 22:20 | comment | added | Miniman | If you ignore the unjustified criticism of the site and its members, this answer reads as "YES! The more the better. Advice and thoughts are definitely something that the site urgently needs more of. Unless the poster specifies BtB, you should encourage out-of-the box thinking." Some justification for these statements would make this a much better answer. | |
| Nov 19, 2014 at 22:14 | history | answered | Nagora | CC BY-SA 3.0 |