Am I an atypical DM?

[MerricB]

Thinking back over the complaints about 3.5e (and 3e) that have been made during the last few years, I get the feeling I'm playing a different game than other people.

A few instances:

Combat speed: Combat seems to go by pretty fast. It only really slows down when I get the maths-challenged people in the group who can't add up 5d6. Otherwise... bonuses stacking? Buffing? Interacting effects? All pretty easy, and fast. And getting better with the more streamlined monsters in MMIV.

Prep-time: D&D is hard to prep for? I often use monsters straight out of the book, grab maps from anywhere (love the Fantastic Locations maps), traps likewise. NPC creation for the core classes is a dream thanks to the DMG info, and even when I have to create an unusual NPC (like the Frost Dwarf Soulborn 9 from last session), it doesn't take more than half-an-hour, and there's no need for many unusual NPC stats. The hard bit is coming up with the actual plot/story (and that's something that's edition-independent).

If I have a pit trap or monster, a reference to the book I found it in is enough.

Overload of options: I, as the DM, don't need to know how all the abilities my players have work exactly. Let's face it: most of D&D is the manipulation of only a few variables. If the net effect of an ability is to stun an opponent if it fails a Fort save, then that's pretty easy to deal with. Sure, the players need to know, but they don't have that much to deal with.

New prestige classes and classes? If the concept is compatible with the campaign, why not? It's not like there are going to be more than a handful of these things in the game at any one time, anyway.

Cheers!

 

[Mark CMG]

Am I an atypical DM?

Uniquely so . . . as are we all.

 

[Chimera]

Combat speed: Combat seems to go by pretty fast. It only really slows down when I get the maths-challenged people in the group who can't add up 5d6. Otherwise... bonuses stacking? Buffing? Interacting effects? All pretty easy, and fast. And getting better with the more streamlined monsters in MMIV.

Combat gets real slow when someone (often the GM) needs to look up a new spell that hasn't been around for years, or handle unique monster abilities or things we don't see a lot, like sundering (for example).

Other than that, I have no complaints about bonus stacking and the like slowing things down. If you can't add a handful of variables without major drama, how do you manage to get through daily life?

I do have one serious problem player who loves to play Psions, but takes (literally) 15 seconds or more to tell us his DCs every single time. But he's the same person who will ignore the game/combat while he sits around joking and trying to be "the life of the party", then decides to act like some kind of chess grandmaster studying the board when it's his turn. Geez, pay attention and stop wasting everyone's time!

Of course, he's the same guy who pulls that gregarious social act with extraneous chatter, but won't role-play in-character or participate in problem solving or decision making AT ALL. Been playing with him for three years now and I'm about ready to cut him loose.

Prep-time: D&D is hard to prep for?

I love coming up with NPCs and Villains, so it's not "hard" in my book.

If I have a pit trap or monster, a reference to the book I found it in is enough.

Yup. May take a few seconds at best if you're intelligent enough to mark the pages or use the freaking index. But I've known people to waste everyone's time flipping around randomly, getting frustrated because they can't find it, while completely ignoring the index, chapter names and the like. Or by suddenly not remembering the order of the alphabet. I spent five minutes one day watching a guy looking through the G-L region of a listing, looking for something that started with a 'b'. Good lord.

Overload of options: I, as the DM, don't need to know how all the abilities my players have work exactly.

Right with you there too.

 

[Morrus]

I have one player who takes ages every single time to add up his bonuses and rolls. Thing is, he knows the rules, and his mathematical skills are just fine. Buit every round it's "Oh, he's making an attack roll... everyone go for a walk for a while or something!"

You just hear this stream of numbers from him... 17..9...23...2...31... you don't know whether these numbers are rolls, modifiers, totals or subtotals, they just go on for a while then stop. And I have to say something like "So that last number in the series was your total attack roll, right?" in the hope that, in the absence of any other indication, that was, in fact, the last number!

Then comes the damage roll... which takes even longer... and, with multiple attacks presented in a stream of numbers muse format, makes it hard to determine which numbers are damage rolls, which are modifiers, which are totals, or even how many separate damage rolls are there or if he's added them all up. Gah!

God knows where it all comes from!

 

[Beckett]

Not that atypical. Your style and game sound a lot like mine. Were I ever stranded in Australia looking for a group, I think I'd try to find yours.

The main slow down for combat that my game seems to have is my Age of Worms game has seven players. It'd go pretty smoothly if everyone was focused and ready to act when their turns came (and to facilitate this, I now have a wipeboard behind me which lists everyone involved in the battle and when they go). Another slow down is that the two newest players are also the spellcasters; much more indecision and needing to look up spells than with experienced players.


Prep time is only hard because I'm a procrastinator, so I don't want to work on putting together stats, but I can do it pretty quickly once I get started.

I love options. The above AoW game is gestalt, with access to the Complete books, the Races books, Tome of Magic, Tome of Battle, PHB2, and other options as long as I get a chance to see it first. Seems to be going well so far.

 

[FireLance]

I've got no problem with combat speed, prep-time, or options, either. However, I usually game with people who are mathematically inclined (most are engineers or work with computers) and can add up and keep track of numbers quite easily.

After DMing for some time, I already have quite a collection of creatures in my slightly tweaked version of WotC's new stat block, and it is fairly easy for me to re-use or modify them whenever necessary (by templating, advancing, or adding class levels, for example). Plus, my group takes turns to DM, so each person usually only has to prepare for and run a game once every one or two months.

I limit option overload in my game by allowing characters to take one non-core option per level, similar to what is done in the RPGA. I do this more to preserve PC vs PC balance since I'm fairly up to date with the material produced by WotC.

I think the main reason why we hear more complaints is that satisfied customers are quietly happy, while dissatisfied ones feel the need to make noise.

 

[jdrakeh]

Prep time is a bitch for me, but that's because I have very little free time in which to attend to such things (I have an irregular work schedule, am currently seeking a second part-time job, and have a few charitable obligations each week). I suspect, though, that the more I invest in pre-written 'mega' adventures (such as the WotA Campaign Book, Shattered City, and TWLD), the less time I'll have to sit aside for prep. The downside is that, in exchange for easy prep, I'll be beating my wallet something awful.

 

[realmaster]

In my group we have players that just blurt out numbers and not referring to what they are for. An example would be they would just rolling and call out numbers without saying hit ac 22 or damage of 8.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I'd say you are atypical among forum posters, in the ways that you have highlighted. Among DMs of D&D 3e? Maybe not.

 

[Sammael]

IMC,

Combat speed depends greatly on the party's current status and the level of threat. The more threatened the PCs feel, the longer the combat takes, because they tend to consider their options more carefully. We ran a pretty quick combat last session; the 6 ECL 18-19 PCs were up against 4 Fire Giant Expert 3/Rogue 3s, 1 Fire Giant Cleric 10 (pre-buffed), and 1 Fire Giant Rogue 3/Scarlet Corsair 9. The combat lasted for about 4 rounds of game time, which translated into about an hour and a half of real-time. Nobody stalled, everybody had their math figured out, more or less, and even the spellcasters didn't take more than a minute per round to figure out what they were going to cast. However, with 12 characters of such high level, there is a lot of rolling going on...

Prep-time: The above encounter took about 3 hours to stat the fire giants. I don't use stock monsters, because I find the usual high-level challenges presented in the books to be... lacking. Even at lower levels, I love making the creatures unique and giving them a personal touch. In other words, I need lots of prep-time, but I don't mind it that much (except picking up spells for the spellcasters... the pain).

Overload of options doesn't bother me much, as I do not allow things into the game without first considering them carefully. I may be behind on using some of the materials I've purchased, but I haven't run into any terrible balance issues yet. I run only one game, my long-term campaign, so I know the PCs' abilities well enough to be comfortable with everything them may pull off.

In conclusion, while I think that you and I are very different Dungeon Masters when it comes to style, we more or less agree on all listed issues - in that that I do not see them as issues at all.