Forum

[gizmo33]

Originally Posted by Mercurius

I'm starting up a 4E campaign but was raised on 1E, and therefore DM Fiat is just an accepted--and necessary--part of gaming. As the 4E DMG itself says, the DM's main job is to create an enjoyable experience; if this means bending or breaking the rules, then so be it.

I've been seeing a core idea expressed here on the internet at least as far back as when 3E came out and it barely makes any sense to me at all.

IME "simulationism" was much more then norm in the earlier editions. The idea that people intentionally made 1E vague I think it overstating the reality. Much of the vagueness and reliance on DM-fiat was a result of the evolution of the game and not some intentional design philosophy. IME alternate rule sets like Dragon Magazine, the basic version of DnD etc. were mined by DMs to establish the rule set. In the end, I just don't see the claims that 1E was rules-light in practice as being back up by what I remember FWIW. Consider the wargaming background of many of the parcicipants in the early days.

And when it comes to "breaking rules" I just don't read how 3E or 4E really makes that any more difficult than it was in earlier editions. The example I think of is climbing. Let's say that the rules say that a wall of a certain nature has a climb check DC of 15. What would the circumstances be for "breaking" this rule? You do realize that circumstantial modifiers are part of the rules, right? Using circumstantial modifiers isn't breaking or bending anything. The DM is well within his rights AFAICT to say that walls on Tuesdays are +10 to their DCs - it's his world and his walls. Sure, the players might think that's stupid, but they also might think that elves and orcs banding together in an alliance is stupid. Ultimately the physics of the campaign world is to be determined by the DM, and this is RAW. Nothing in any of the editions contradicts this.

So what's left under the heading of "bending the rules" by the DM are only the most extreme cases of a complete disregard for letting the circumstances dictate the probabilities. And really, I can't actually think of an example that I couldn't come up with circumstance modifiers to justify. The basic philosophy of every edition of DnD was that both players and the DM would roll dice for the outcome, and that the DM would be a "neutral arbiter" and that his judging of the game would involve determining the circumstances surrounding a particular event, and then determine the chance of success/failure based on these circumstances, and that the judging of those circumstances was ideally to be done in a consistent manner (example - if last week I got a +5 for climbing while wearing spiked gauntlets, I should get the same thing this week barring additional circumstances). No edition of DnD IME has ever tried to prevent this basic DMing philosophy.

If the DM is, in fact, creating a more "enjoyable experience" then I would think he wouldn't have much explaining to do about breaking the rules since the players would all agree what an improvement his change would be. If the DMs and all the players at the table think that limiting halflings to 4th level as fighters makes a more enjoyable and old-school experience then IMO that pretty much settles the issue. The DM wouldn't need the official rule set to validate this judgement in this case.