Pros and Cons of going mainstream

Manbearcat said:

Like you, I'm certain that we aren't exceptions. There are probably 15-20 or so 4e GMs that I can think of on these boards alone where if you traded each of us out, the game would be only superficially different (primarily at the genre preferences level with only minor technique fluctuation). So this isn't some rare experience that is inaccessible to the masses (or mearls specifically...especially, as you note, he has a system-experienced GM at his beck and call).

Its exceedingly frustrating to see what should be (and as such is pressupposed as) authoritative commentary, informed by insight and experience, bear no resemblance to my play experience and then be passed down the grapevine (to be used as a weapon by detractors).

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Maybe it is authoritative commentary but you refuse to see it because it doesn't match your own confirmation bias? After all, you're certain that you and pemerton aren't exceptions, but you seem to be basing that on little data that isn't unbiased itself. Could it be that he's not ignorant or that he's not just doing some market-speak but that he has noticed a real trend based on the data he values or trusts? I think that's certainly a third option along with the "only two" you lay out.

pemerton said:

My first thought is that, as part of a marketing campaign, this is Mearls as an echo-chamber for a certain sort of potential customer who is not especially happy with the current direction of WotC's games.

You may be right, though, that he doesn't have a good feel for what people are doing with the game - but then why hasn't he asked Chris Perkins, who presumably is in an office/cubicle down the hall somewhere!

I guess it's possible that most home games are crap and you, I, [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION], [MENTION=59411]Pour[/MENTION] and others are some breakout exceptions. But suppose that were true - which I personally doubt - is there any particular reason to think that things were once upon a time different in some past golden decade? I played quite a bit of, and saw plenty of others playing a lot of, crap D&D back in the 80s and 90s.

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I kinda recognise what Mearls means by RPG decadence, both in the '90s railroad era and in the 3e player-entitlement era. But I actually thought 4e did a lot to roll back on the problems 3e brought in. I've seen a few aggressive, obnoxious, sense-of-entitlement players at my D&D Meetup. But not in 4e games. I see some people on rpgnet advocating "4e GM as rules monkey", but I've never experienced it as a real issue at-table, whereas it was a real problem for me with 3e. For a start 4e firmly rejects 'rules as physics', which makes the rules-monkey approach very hard to sustain.

Edit: Oh, I guess there is the issue with 4e adventures - while the 4e game itself does not try to turn the GM into a dancing monkey, the horrible 'Delve Format' with its prepositioned monsters and computer-script style combat instructions does often feel a bit "Dance Monkey, Dance!"

billd91 said:

Apparently you guys weren't very active on the internet over the last 10 or so years in which we witnessed lots of players complaining about GMs not following the RAW, disputes over what the RAW meant, dismissals of people who adhere to Rules as Interpreted as "house rules", as well as players complaining bitterly about GMs violating encounter creation guidelines, not upholding wealth by level limits, destroying their stuff with rust monsters setting them back on their WBL permanently, creating campaigns that disallow certain character concepts, enforcing paladin code violations, and otherwise saying no to them when they want to do something "cool".

Of course Mearls's theory isn't going to apply to every single game being played. He's not trying to say that games in which the players and GMs have a functional rather than dysfunctional relationship don't exist. He's trying to describe the zeitgeist of D&D with respect to rules vs rulings, rules vs GM authority. The pendulum has swung when you compare the 1e days to the 2e days to the 3e days to now (in fact, it's probably fair to say there are multiple pendulums all swinging around at once). And in some ways, that's deliberate. Part of 3e's philosophy, thanks to Skip Williams, was to put more of the rules in the players' hands so know what to expect out of the actions they choose to take. And while that may be reasonable, one of the blessings of turning things over to the general public is that you get people and groups who push reasonable to the point of unreasonableness. And that gets reflected here on the discussion boards where discussions serve to amplify differences more often than promote commonality.

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I agree, but I feel this was a 3e thing that really died down a lot with 4e. 4e design doesn't seem to lend itself to the same kind of player-GM clashes 3e produced. It didn't do that by disempowering players, either - more that it expects well of them, and they tend to rise to expectations. Eg I just don't see any "Pretending to be CG, actually CE" type behaviour in 4e games. The absence of mechanical Paladins' Code restrictions, or even mechanical alignment, did not lead to a rash of LG-really-CE either, quite the reverse.
4e certainly has its problems, but disempowered GMs is not one of them IME.

S'mon said:

I agree, but I feel this was a 3e thing that really died down a lot with 4e. 4e design doesn't seem to lend itself to the same kind of player-GM clashes 3e produced. It didn't do that by disempowering players, either - more that it expects well of them, and they tend to rise to expectations. Eg I just don't see any "Pretending to be CG, actually CE" type behaviour in 4e games. The absence of mechanical Paladins' Code restrictions, or even mechanical alignment, did not lead to a rash of LG-really-CE either, quite the reverse.
4e certainly has its problems, but disempowered GMs is not one of them IME.

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Yeah, I kind of see it differently, here are just a few things in 4e I saw complaints about...

1. Wish lists of magic items...
2. A boatload of player powers with their own individual rules that most DM's couldn't memorize and thus must rely on the player's rules knowledge/integrity/etc. to understand and adjudicate correctly...
3. Players create their own quests and assign xp for them...
4. Expectations set of balanced (most often this meant winnable to players) encounters...
5. Expectation set that everything is core and not subject to DM or consensual approval...
6. Paragon paths and epic destinies were all allowed regardless if they fit or didn't in the campaign world...

I think there were plenty of complaints early in the lifespan of 4e from GM's who didn't enjoy or want the dis-empowering things in 4e... but like the problems they had with numerous other things they were told either the problem didn't really exist or to just change it...

pemerton said:

I don't really undestand how this sort of rather baroque aspect of AD&D helped make the GM something other than a "rules guy".

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Fair question! I did not convey my view that before the DM starts changing the rules he should learn them. That initial burden seems to discourage casual entry into DM-ing. Not saying that this is either good or bad. Another feature of that era IMO was that rules did not cover as much as subsequent editions. And even if there was a rule in some supplement, more DMs were just as happy to make a ruling instead of keeping current of all the rules. In fact rules were seen as more of official opinions () and DM made calls were common. For example, RAW if somebody slipped on slick surface (like ice) do the DM call for a Dexterity check (roll under) or save vs petrification (roll over) in order to catch oneself before falling off? I have seen examples of both in modules. Another part was that there was not assumed to be as much consistency (and balance) between individual groups ways of playing. That make switching groups harder (one campaign may feature numerology magic while another use spells based on gems) while often resulting into more customized to the players rules.

S'mon said:

I guess there is the issue with 4e adventures - while the 4e game itself does not try to turn the GM into a dancing monkey, the horrible 'Delve Format' with its prepositioned monsters and computer-script style combat instructions does often feel a bit "Dance Monkey, Dance!"

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I don't think I've seen anyone try to defend the 4e adventures. Some of the ideas are interesting (but some are not), and some individual story elements or encounter set-ups are interesting (but some are not), but their overall design is (I think) clearly a failure.

Imaro said:

1. Wish lists of magic items...
2. A boatload of player powers with their own individual rules that most DM's couldn't memorize and thus must rely on the player's rules knowledge/integrity/etc. to understand and adjudicate correctly...
3. Players create their own quests and assign xp for them...
4. Expectations set of balanced (most often this meant winnable to players) encounters...
5. Expectation set that everything is core and not subject to DM or consensual approval...
6. Paragon paths and epic destinies were all allowed regardless if they fit or didn't in the campaign world...

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billd91 said:

lots of players complaining about GMs not following the RAW, disputes over what the RAW meant, dismissals of people who adhere to Rules as Interpreted as "house rules", as well as players complaining bitterly about GMs violating encounter creation guidelines, not upholding wealth by level limits, destroying their stuff with rust monsters setting them back on their WBL permanently, creating campaigns that disallow certain character concepts, enforcing paladin code violations, and otherwise saying no to them when they want to do something "cool".

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I guess that I don't see these things as per se objectionable.

Wanting the GM to follow the rules; wanting the GM to recognise encounter-building guidelines around which the game has been designed; expecting access to PC-build resources (eg WBL, magic items) around which the game has been designed; wanting to exercise some authority over the fictional content of the game (via choice of PC build elements and setting quests) - I don't see any of these things as bad. To me, this is players wanting to play the game according to its rules. And I personally don't see much attractive in an RPG ideal of the players just sitting at the table and doing nothing but making in-character calls in response to situations that the GM throws at them entirely according to his/her conception of what the game is going to be about.

S'mon said:

I feel this was a 3e thing that really died down a lot with 4e. 4e design doesn't seem to lend itself to the same kind of player-GM clashes 3e produced.

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This is interesting. I don't have the play experience with 3E to make the comparison, but it doesn't entirely surprise me - as best I understand the system, 3E seems designed almost deliberately to create conficts of interest, or at least tension, at the table, because the GM is called upon both to push opposition against the PCs, and to make "rules as physics"-style calls that can easily end up hosing the players.

I think it's an important innovation in RPG design (which 4e didn't make, it copied from earlier models) to come up with "level appropriate" or "scaling" DCs (of which 4e's approach is just one version) that mean that the players can be confident that the GM's calls will contribute both to colour and to the details of resolution, but won't make the difference between easy and hosed. (An alternative to scaled DCs is a Burning Wheel style approach of "objective" DCs but liberal Fate Points in combination with "fail forward" which means that the players are happy to take risks and not always succeed.)

AD&D has many similar features to 3E in this respect, but (at least in its classic playstyle) maybe has enough gonzo on the player as well as the GM side (especially various spells and items) that the conflicts don't manifest quite as egregiously. I'd be interested in your (S'mon's) views on this given your recent GMing experience with AD&D.

Luce said:

before the DM starts changing the rules he should learn them. That initial burden seems to discourage casual entry into DM-ing.

<snip>

RAW if somebody slipped on slick surface (like ice) do the DM call for a Dexterity check (roll under) or save vs petrification (roll over) in order to catch oneself before falling off? I have seen examples of both in modules.

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I still don't see how this sets up the GM in some role that contrasts with "the rules guy". What contribution does it make to the game that we have multiple rather baroque options for determining whether or not someone slips on ice?

In 4e, for instance, this is an Acrobatics check. The GM's role isn't to decide what sort of check it is - the rules tell us that (and so a player who has build a high-Acro bonus PC will be better at traversing slippery ice). The GM's role is to choose how difficult the check is, which will then determine what sort of impact the presence of the ice makes during play.

pemerton said:

I guess that I don't see these things as per se objectionable.

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I am in no way surprised. The problem isn't a problem... thus the problem doesn't exist. Of course this in no way addresses whether these things are or aren't dis-empowering to DM's (which is what we are discussing), only that you don't find it objectionable... Ok.

pemerton said:

Wanting the GM to follow the rules; wanting the GM to recognise encounter-building guidelines around which the game has been designed; expecting access to PC-build resources (eg WBL, magic items) around which the game has been designed; wanting to exercise some authority over the fictional content of the game (via choice of PC build elements and setting quests) - I don't see any of these things as bad. To me, this is players wanting to play the game according to its rules. And I personally don't see much attractive in an RPG ideal of the players just sitting at the table and doing nothing but making in-character calls in response to situations that the GM throws at them entirely according to his/her conception of what the game is going to be about.

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First, great way to misrepresent the way DM empowered games are played in and run in that last sentence... but I guess broad generalizations and disparagement is par for the course.

That said, and getting back to the point... do you agree or disagree that these are dis-empowering things for the DM, regardless of whether your favored play style embraces them or not?

pemerton said:

I still don't see how this sets up the GM in some role that contrasts with "the rules guy". What contribution does it make to the game that we have multiple rather baroque options for determining whether or not someone slips on ice?

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The DM is always the "rules guy", whether it is the RAW or the ones of his own creation. I wished to engage into discussion if there has been an official point shift as well as at the table application regarding uniform consistency of the rules.

From the intro to 2e DM:
"Choice is what the AD&D game is all about. We tried to offer you what we think are
the best choices for your AD&D campaign, but each of us has different likes and
dislikes. the game that I enjoy may be quite different from your own
campaign. But is not up to me to say what is wrong or right for your game
...
Don't just let the game sit there, and don't become a rules lawyer worrying about
each piddly little detail. If you cannot figure out the answer, MAKE IT UP!
And whatever you do, don't fall into the trap of believing these rules are complete.
They are not. you cannot sit back and let the rule book do everything for you. Take
the time and effort to become not just a good DM, but a brilliant one.
...
I'm often asked for the instant answer to a fine point of game rules. More often then not,
I come back with a question -what do you feel is right? And the people asking
the questions discover that not only can they create an answer, but their answer is as good
as anyone else's. The rules are just guidelines."

I do not remember seeing anything contradictory in the following editions rules, in the same time I neither remember this view being so explicitly reiterated since.

Edit: From 3e DMG p11:
"Every rule in the PHB is written for a reason. That doesn't mean you cannot change them for your game
...
Given the creativity of gamers, almost every campaign will in time, develop its own house rules.
...
changing the way the game does something shouldn't be taken lightly.
...
(pp 15) Mastery of the rules is one reason why the DM is sometimes called the referee.
"
My apologies, I do not have my core 4e books at hands. May be somebody will be willing to provide a better examples. All I can find was from the Rules Compendium :
"(pp9) Referee:The Dm decides how to aplly the game rules and guides the story.
If the rules don't cover a situation, the DM determines what to do. At times the DM might alter or even ignore the result of a die roll if doing so benefits the story."

To me the progression in the rules modification advice (from those excerpts) seems to be "Change the rules as you will, experiment.",
"Change the rules with extreme caution", "Do not change the rules, fudge to get the desired result". None is wrong or right, but I do feel there is a definite change.


When I read people obsessing about the latest errata or telling others that by not following the RAW they are committing a sin I start to wander: Have I become a minority, which only cares about having fun with some friends?

Imaro said:

The problem isn't a problem

<snip>

do you agree or disagree that these are dis-empowering things for the DM, regardless of whether your favored play style embraces them or not?

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Hey, I'm not the one who called other peoples' playstyles "decadent" - that was Mearls. Nor am I the one who reposted and endorsed that - that was the OP.

Judging from your list 1 to 6, you prefer a game in which:

• There are no PC build elements (eg magic items, boons, etc) which are also non-PC generated story elements, because you prefer the introduction of non-PC generated story elements to be under the sole authority of the GM;
  
  
• There are no PC build element which have mechanics whose administration and oversight is under the primary jurisdiction of the player rather than the GM;
  
  
• Players do not have authority to establish story goals for their PCs that will generate metagame rewards (like XP, presumably also Fate Points, etc);
  
  
• There are not guidelines for assessing the mechanical relationship between challenge threat and player resources (or, if there are such guidelines, they are disregarde by the GM; you may also (it's not clear) prefer a game in which many challenges cannot be overcome by the PCs - presumably, then the PCs' survival of such encounters would depend upon something other than the players' capacity to deploy their mechanical and story resources;
  
• The GM has authority over whether or not new PC build elements can be included in the game, both from the mechanical point of view and the story point of view.

I've got no objection to anyone playing that sort of game, although I don't think it's especially representative of the D&D tradition. I do object to departures from it being described as decadent.

Imaro said:

great way to misrepresent the way DM empowered games are played in and run in that last sentence

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Where's the misinterpretation? In a game that fits the parameters I just outlined (which I am inferring from your list of things you don't like), what do players do besides make in-character calls in response to situations that the GM throws at them according to his/her conception of what the game is going to be about? The players don't introduce story elements themselves, for instance, unless they are PC-generated within the fiction. And the players don't get to establish goals that will generate metagame rewards, and which the GM is obliged to respect in encounter and scenario design.

Luce said:

From the intro to 2e DM:
"Choice is what the AD&D game is all about.

<snip>

Don't just let the game sit there, and don't become a rules lawyer worrying about
each piddly little detail. If you cannot figure out the answer, MAKE IT UP!

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To the extent that this is good advice, why does it not also apply to the players?

To give an example from my own game: one of the players in my 4e game plays an invoker/wizard who has take the Expert Ritualist feat which gives a +2 bonus to skill checks involved in peforming rituals. Now, what counts as a ritual? My guess is that when that feat was authored, the writer had in mind only rituals as defined mechanically with the 4e PC build and action resolution system. However, my player interprets "ritual" to mean any deployment of his skills to generate a magical effect, such as closing a portal or sealing a breach. Given that the feat is hardly overpowered, and the player spending more time having his PC do that sort of thing seems to make for a fun game, I (as GM) haven't raised any queries about the player's interpretation of that feat.

Is this bad GMing? Or decadent RPGing?

The whole idea that getting the players more involved in the game - in story, in mechanics - is a sign of degradation I find odd, myself. If someone can indicate a particular conflict of interest, that's another matter - but GM's can have conflicts of interest too, and how RPG rules balance such things is an interesting and tricky matter. There's certainly no general principle that all authority over story and resolution should be given to the GM.