5th Edition and the Female Demographic

[Umbran]

As someone who has played for years and played every edition I have watched the game become more codified and depend less on DM fiat now some say this is a good thing because it helps inexperienced DMs plan CR and XP awards. But I have seen a negative aspect as well and that is DMs often get boxed into a corner and can't try new things because oh my gosh it is not part of the RAW.

Like the rest of us haven't been playing for ages?

I'm pretty sure I first saw the term "rules lawyer" back in Dragon during the 1e days. Folks have been trying to box GMs since the beginning. Players have an investment in their characters, and they don't like to lose, so some of them will argue a lot. No arrangement of rules will get rid of that, because it is human problem, not a rules problem.

I have also read people talk about other systems where in their experience the flaws work. Like my experience with Shadowrun and never once seeing flaws abused badly that they unbalance or break the game.

You can't have it both ways, you know. You say that players will try to box a GM in with rules. So, if you ensconce merits and flaws in your rules, what's going to happen? Some players *will* try to abuse the letter of the merit/flaw rules for their own benefit!

Sure, some groups will have no problems. No argument there. But, if you put them in the rules (core or "optional", for arguentative players it doesn't make much difference), you're putting a GM in the situation of having to get his players to accept changes to them if they don't work well for him. And you just got done saying how difficult that can be.

So, while I like some games and their merit/flaw systems, I can't really blame the D&D designers for not including one. Nice to have, but my game would run fine without it, too.

 

[Elf Witch]

Like the rest of us haven't been playing for ages?

I'm pretty sure I first saw the term "rules lawyer" back in Dragon during the 1e days. Folks have been trying to box GMs since the beginning. Players have an investment in their characters, and they don't like to lose, so some of them will argue a lot. No arrangement of rules will get rid of that, because it is human problem, not a rules problem.



You can't have it both ways, you know. You say that players will try to box a GM in with rules. So, if you ensconce merits and flaws in your rules, what's going to happen? Some players *will* try to abuse the letter of the merit/flaw rules for their own benefit!

Sure, some groups will have no problems. No argument there. But, if you put them in the rules (core or "optional", for arguentative players it doesn't make much difference), you're putting a GM in the situation of having to get his players to accept changes to them if they don't work well for him. And you just got done saying how difficult that can be.

So, while I like some games and their merit/flaw systems, I can't really blame the D&D designers for not including one. Nice to have, but my game would run fine without it, too.

I am well aware that rules layers and munchkins have been around forever. But that is not the same as how much more codified the rules have become. Looking back on older editions I think there were less rules for certain things and things were left up to the DM. I thought it was interesting that in the 4E players handbook they put in magic items and a guide for magic items by level. To me magic items have always been the purview of the DM and I felt by doing that it shifted the power to the player.

The only way to handle a player who argues a lot is to set limits like I do at my table when I say enough this is my decision we move on. We can revisit the issue after the game is over if you don't like that well then to put it bluntly there is the door. And as a player I give my DM the same courtesy.

As for players trying to box the DM in with rules well by logic having a codified flaws and edge system gives the DM the power to say this is the rules you picked the flaw and this is what happens. If we are afraid to add anything to the game just because a player might find away to abuse it then I have to question why we allow some of the things that I have seen be abused that are integral to the game system. As I said before multi classing, prestige classes are a problem as well as feats and spells from splat books. It might be easier all around to take those out but then the game would be very different.

And again it is great if your game does need them or want them in Shadowrun it is quite clear that you need GM approval to use any of them and some GMs don't allow them at all. I have never seen major issues with having them written that way so no I don't understand why the designers of DnD are so wary of them. As I said add it in as an option that a DM can choose to incorporate in his game if he wishes or ignore if he does not want it.

 

[nedjer]

If players want to play and enjoy a fairly crunchy version of D&D, (which like every version has some plus and minus points for each of us), then go them.

However, I'm lost with the notion that rules should stick to the letter of the rules law, because it puts DMs in a sticky situation. No DM should feel it's a tricky situation to consult and discuss how a group can enjoy their game.

Players who get agitated and refer to the rules to, as they see it, utterly maximise their PCs' builds and rewards to the point of argument are effectively cheating the whole table and themselves as soon as a DM feels its a 'situation' to simply try to interpret the rules on the basis of a level playing field.

Uber-rules lawyers aren't 'winning' as a result of skillful play and are quite simply trying to seek an unfair advantage over other players by fixing the game before play even starts. This is a total double standard where they're saying the rules must never be bent, unless I'm bending them.

Giving in to this, because some players choose to turn it into a 'situation' or because it requires a bit of discussion to create a level playing field seems no different from a sport where the referee has groups of shouting, fist-raising players screaming in her/ his face every time a decision is made. That way lies not a minor adjustment of the rules, but a culture of seeking unfair advantage over other players.

This is not edition specific, as illustrated by some of the first guys I played with. They ran games across groups and conveniently optimised each other to the point where they were so powerful that the game presented them with little they couldn't do at the flick of a switch.

Sadly, for them, they never actually played D&D. They just thought they were playing D&D while filling-out a sticker album. The very same guys once spent two days setting-up thousands of counters for a WW2 wargame and when they rolled and didn't invade Britain on turn 2 said: 'there's no point continuing, because we've no chance of winning now, the game's a broken system'. If they'd made the roll they had every intention of playing through this broken game. Major losers

So, I'm not for bowing down to those, (usually a vocal minority), who make a DM feel the DM is creating a situation because they've never left the playground. Nooooo . . . this is what we do to them:

Caddyshack clip - YouTube

 

[Kaodi]

I apologize if this has already been mentioned and I am merely forgetting:

I have heard of studies that suggest that companies/projects run by a mix of men and women do objectively better than ones that are run by all men or all women, regardless of if the people in the homogenous group are individually somewhat more skilled.

The question is, I think, is whether this would actually translate to game design. Would a game that employed a mix of male and female designers not only be more attactive to women, but more likely to be objectively better for everyone. I do not know what the current team for D&D R&D ( " 3DR " ? ) looks like, as I imagine there have been changes other than the addition of Monte Cook since Christopher Perkins posted about it on his blog last year (huge changes, if I remember correctly):

Richard Baker (design manager), Greg Bilsland (editor), Bart Carroll (D&D website editor-in-chief), Michele Carter (editing manager), Jeremy Crawford (developer), Mike Mearls (group manager), Kim Mohan (managing editor), Cal Moore (editor), Christopher Perkins (senior producer), Stephen Schubert (development manager), Matt Sernett (designer), Rodney Thompson (designer), and Steve Winter (magazines editor-in-chief).

Obviously there is a huge talent pool listed there, but it is not a diverse in the way that concerns us in this thread. Whether this makes an objective difference in the quality of the game for guys as well as gals, who knows?