DMing philosophy, from Lewis Pulsipher

Ruin Explorer said:

Henry, I feel you on this, but you offer zero reasoning as to why people should be forced to deal with "Gygaxian puzzles" (which were largely junk, in my experience, and designed to be metagamed by people who knew the solutions from previous, dead, characters, according to actual first-hand accounts of Gary's games), when they apparently want what you call "guided tours"?

I'm also curious, how have you come across these players, such that they cause you concern? Is this a "Kids today..." thing?

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That's perfectly fair, but I suppose in my mind it's like the difference between playing a bit of Liar's Dice, and playing Candyland. In Candyland, you're just going down the path with random chance injected, and with Liar's dice, you're mixing chance with a bit of tactics and challenge from your fellow players. Some Gygaxian puzzles were too much, I admit (Tomb of Horrors would teach me that, there are some parts that are like being chased through a minefield by a wild tiger who knows where the mines are).

As for where I've come across these players, it's been various groups over the past 20 years, some young, some same age as me. It's not just "kids these days", it's "kids my days" too.

Further, preparation and cooperation are two different things. I've seen groups who could form insane, terrifying ambushes with battle plans, but once things got real, none of them cooperated (they just trusted the wizard not to kill them, even as they stymied some of his plans by their positioning), and I've seen players who don't ever express a plan beforehand but cooperate magnificently and save the day in actual combat.

In fact, my experience is that people who are "planners" and people who are "team players" are actually opposed personality types for the most part, when it comes to D&D (less so IRL, but there's still a tension there).

But like I said, I feel you on this - I could see some more planning come back, some more equipment mattering, and so on (it's been largely irrelevant since 3E), I just wonder at the "why" on forcing tourist-y groups into Gygax-y situations, and how you've experienced that.

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The why isn't "we must DO something," it's more "I'd love to see it happen." I have noticed for times I've gamed with former or current armed forces members, I tend to see a little more care for planning from players (for obvious reasons, I suppose) - maybe I just need to hunt around for more former military to game with.

Last night in my Pathfinder game I saw a little of this -- our group was accosted in a narrow hallway by giant spiders who attacked not only at floor level, but climbing on walls too, and our group was somewhat paralyzed by the "stand and deliver" mentality, not thinking to retreat to either more cramped quarters and buffing our most heavily defended warrior, or to retreat to more open territory where area effects and ranged attacks could come into play. Taking my own advice, I took a few risky moves to both open up the corridor and to get into flanking position, but our first instinct was "stand and swing away where we were attacked" without coordination. This is a group of thirty, forty, and fifty-somethings, and we still almost fell prey to it.

Umbran said:

*shrug*. My experience is the opposite - parties that generally do too much planning, and then fines their plan falls apart in the face of the enemy. sop they used up a whole lot of game time in something that turns out to be useless.

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Sounds like DMs who keep the party on their toes, to me.

There can be too much planning just like NO planning -- but I'd like to see (and try to encourage) a little forward thinking among a group:

• Make sure the sneak attackers have flank buddies
• Don't be afraid to retreat to favorable ground, or even retreat completely if you're faced with overwhelming odds
• Don't run into the middle of the enemy formation before you see where the wizard's placing his/her area effect spell
• Make sure the party healer has nothing better to do than heal you before you even charge into your first combat (some clerics aren't just heal-bots as we know)
• Don't swamp the boss with melee PCs forcing the ranged PCs into penalties

Just small simple things make a difference between acting like a bunch of boot campers and acting like a group that rightfully survived being rookies. In its own way, it's an issue of verisimilitude for me.

Umbran said:

The only real difference is whether we save all the rewards for the end, or dole out the rewards in smaller doses along the way. Either mode uses the same base reward mechanisms, in terms of brain function.

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I just have to disagree, but my explanation would turn into a deeper argument that brushes political and social commentary, so I won't. I'm not that old to start chasing people off my lawn, so not yet.

I will say that [MENTION=30518]lewpuls[/MENTION] it's awesome to see you stop by! I have a lot of fond memories of those old Dragon Mag articles ("want to find out if there's any evil dopplegangers in your party? Pass around some holy water and find out!" )

Emerikol said:

I don't know about anything else but I definitely see an "easy" trend in gaming in general these days. I do believe we have an entitled generation today. And no I'm not 60. I'm in my 40's.

Prior to 3e, D&D was a hard game and death was easy. At least in many campaigns. At the launch of 3e onward the game gradually kept getting easier until we got to 4e where a competent group was practically unkillable unless the DM outright ignored anything remotely resembling the encounter rules.

When I roleplay, I definitely want a game that is "losable". I want a game that challenges the PLAYER as well as the character. Both. I want it to be tough at least in my campaign. With 3e, I had to work to keep this playstyle going. In 4e it couldn't be done. I am hopeful that 5e will give me a game I can play the way I'd like to play. I'm not foolish enough to believe that anything I say can change the general trend of our society. I just hope I can ride around the toilet long enough that I die before I go down the drain with the rest of society. And yes I have kids and I weep for their future. And yes I vote. And yes I don't have much hope.

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See, this is the thing that flies right up my nose. No, it is not true. It is flat out false. 3e is far, far more lethal than AD&D in combat. The only reason AD&D combat is lethal is the prevalence of Save or Die mechanics. In encounters lacking SOD, AD&D was almost always a cakewalk, with combatants coming out of the encounter without losing any HP. 3e combat is just very, very lethal. An average creature deals 10 X CR in max damage in a single round. By the rules, characters do not average 10 HP/Level.

4e, yup, is a less lethal game. Particularly if the DM isn't paying attention. But, it is set up that way. You don't get rocket tag in 4e. To really challenge the PC's you need to have numerous encounters between rest periods.

But the idea that AD&D was this brutal grindfest with death around every corner is a pernicious myth that does not stand up to any actual analysis.

Ahnehnois said:

I definitely see that trend in the published game. I wonder how true it is in what people actually play.

Even with regards to the published game, I don't think it's some inexorable force, simply a trend. If anything, I expect that over time it'll pass the point where it pisses people off and there'll be a push back the other way.

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I wonder how many PC's perished in Age of Worms (the Paizo AP). It was known as a grind fest. Actually, all the Paizo AP's for 3e were known for being grindfests.

When I ran The World's Largest Dungeon for 3e, I permanently killed 26 PC's in 80 sessions. All perfectly legit and rules legal. Zero fudging and all die rolls done in the open.

The idea that the published game is getting easier is simply not true.

Emerikol said:

Prior to 3e, D&D was a hard game and death was easy. At least in many campaigns. At the launch of 3e onward the game gradually kept getting easier until we got to 4e where a competent group was practically unkillable unless the DM outright ignored anything remotely resembling the encounter rules.

When I roleplay, I definitely want a game that is "losable". I want a game that challenges the PLAYER as well as the character.

<snip>

With 3e, I had to work to keep this playstyle going. In 4e it couldn't be done.

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I think that you over-generalise in this post.

(1) PC death is not the only loss condition in an RPG. There can be other mechanical loss conditions, and there can also be story loss conditions.

(2) Depending on rules for brining in new PCs, PC death may not even be a loss condition at all. It is if new PCs have to start again at 1st level, but that is not a common rule, I don't think. If a new PC comes in at much the same level and with much the same degree of story resources, then PC death isn't a loss, just a changel.

(3) 4e absolutely can lead to PC death even among competent groups. This is partially, but not solely, an issue of extend rest cycles.

pemerton said:

I think that you over-generalise in this post.

(1) PC death is not the only loss condition in an RPG. There can be other mechanical loss conditions, and there can also be story loss conditions.

(2) Depending on rules for brining in new PCs, PC death may not even be a loss condition at all. It is if new PCs have to start again at 1st level, but that is not a common rule, I don't think. If a new PC comes in at much the same level and with much the same degree of story resources, then PC death isn't a loss, just a changel.

(3) 4e absolutely can lead to PC death even among competent groups. This is partially, but not solely, an issue of extend rest cycles.

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I know three things from my experience:

1. AD&D was deadly for another reason: Lack of DMs having ratings for level-appropriate challenges. Look at Steading of the Hill Giant Chief for a module that had few status effect monsters but overwhelming hordes of beasties that you had to handle with a little care if you didnt want to die quickly (even if half of 'em were drunk )
2. 3E and family are Rocket-tag deadly, between save or die (still in there, and 3.0 was positively terrible about it! hello, Harm touch attack plus a dagger thrust!) and characters doing as mentioned 100 points or more in a round. I agree it was a worthy edition to the deadly lineage of D&D.
3. The first 4e death I saw was a PC running too cockily into a room with 4 ghouls and a ghast, and he got eaten in three rounds. Dropped to twice negative CON and torn to ribbons. Second was a party who didnt follow any common sense tactics, split the party into three combats, and had one guy hung on a yardarm by pirates after they beat him senseless.

Our 4e game is once a month, with some skipped months. So we're at about 40-45 sessions. 19 PC deaths, including 2 TPKs.

PS

It's cool that [MENTION=30518]lewpuls[/MENTION] showed up in this thread

This describes my approach to DMing really well. I'm just recently beginning to move beyond it in realizing that how appropriate it is for the DM to make something up on the spot slides up or down based on how close it is to affecting the PC's HP, GP or XP. I never fudge dice rolls in combat or alter the value or location of treasure on the fly, almost never override morale or surprise rolls, rarely but sometimes override encounter or perception-type rolls, and make up lots of stuff during social/town encounters. I always make sure the players know my general approach, even if they don't know whether I'm deciding a particular thing randomly or by fiat. When I do "massage" the game in a particular direction it's not to produce a better story but to customize the game to my players' ability and create a smoother learning curve for them. Like a guitar teacher altering their lesson plan to make learning to play a little smoother and more enjoyable for their student. If I want to make an adventure easier then I generally give the players more information rather than alter encounters or fudge rolls.

Regarding the tendency of hands-off DMing to lead to the occasional boring session, I think you should always try to solve this with better game content first. If you put something interesting in every direction then you don't need to guide the players to the interesting thing (my dungeons have far fewer empty rooms than those produced by the random generator in the 1e DMG). The DM doesn't need to fudge to get the players out of difficult situations if the players can retreat or activate an "ejection seat" type ability to escape at a cost. Obviously it's best for these to take the form of in-game abilities but if necessary fate/luck points serve the same purpose.

I definitely think that if you're going to run a sandbox, you need to make the gameworld unrealistically dense with interesting stuff. Making the gameworld more realistic broadens the scope of player strategy but the returns diminish pretty steeply I think. As long as each "encounter" makes sense and responds logically to player interaction I think that gets you 95% of the way there. I don't think that monster ecosystems and architecturally realistic dungeon layouts add anything significant to gameplay. I think the old school gonzo dungeon is right in the sweet spot here. Fortunately I've found that aesthetically my players also care most about the immediate details (e.g. if I describe a ghoul in a sufficiently creepy way they don't care how it got there).

lewpuls said:

Yes, video gaming was heavily consequence-based in the 80, especially when the arcades were still strong and you could actually lose a video game (in a sense). Some of it still is. But MMOs (which are frequently RPGs) and F2Ps have led to the ascendance of reward-based gaming. I think this is more a symptom of a change in society (the entitled generation), than a cause, but who can say for sure.

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I agree that this change is taking place, but I don't think it's because today's generation is more entitled, I think it's because whenever a form of entertainment becomes more economically sophisticated the highs and lows get levelled off and it starts catering to the lowest common denominator, because people who love something and people who merely find it pleasant pay into it pretty much the same, while people who hate it don't pay at all. So it generally makes more sense to create something that everybody finds pleasant enough rather than something that some people love and some people hate.